Esteban Guerrieri dominates first free practice at Termas
WTCC rookie Esteban Guerrieri led the way in the first free practice session at Termas de Rio Hondo, Argentina. The local driver put his Campos Racing Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 on top in the early stages and his lead was never under serious threat for the rest of the session. Yvan Muller came second in the Citroën C-Elysée, one second slower than the Argentinian, ahead of Honda’s Norbert Michelisz.
In the first few minutes Guerrieri took the lead by an impressive margin of seven tenths from Michelisz. With ten minutes to go, after experiencing an issue as he did a simulation of a start at the end of the pit lane, the local hero further improved his lap time by half a second, by which time Yvan Muller had already taken second place.
Gabriele Tarquini managed a good fourth, the Lada driver sitting in the top five for most of the session. Despite some struggles for pace earlier in the session, championship leader José María López also improved in the last ten minutes, which brought him up to fifth ahead of Rob Huff.
James Thompson was second in the independents and seventh outright in the Münnich Motorsport Cruze, making a late improvement to finish ahead of Campos Racing regular John Filippi. Tiago Monteiro finished ninth in his Honda, ahead of Lada’s Hugo Valente, who closed the top ten a blink of an eye faster than team-mate Nicky Catsburg.
The Volvos seemed to struggle in a completely unknown territory such as Termas de Rio Hondo, as Robert Dahlgren ended up 14th and Thed Björk finished last.
There were no major incidents during the session. Free Practice 2 is scheduled for 16:00 CET.
