Norbert Michelisz tops practice before near-disastrous puncture

Honda’s Norbert Michelisz topped the 60-minute Free Practice 1 session on Thursday evening, at the Nurburgring, and was set to improve his time even further before a puncture on his last run nearly sent the Hungarian into the barriers.

Michelisz topped the session with a time of 8:43.255 ahead of Citroën’s Rob Huff, while the two Hondas of Michelisz and Monteiro were set to improve further before both hit troubles on their last run.

Polestar Cyan Racing’s Nicky Catsburg had put down the first competitive benchmark of 8:47.034 in the Volvo S60 TC1, before the yellow flags were out for over 20-minutes after an accident involving RC Motorsport Lada driver Yann Ehrlacher.

The 20-year-old Frenchman crashed off soon after Brünnchen, with an apparent power steering failure with the Vesta WTCC, crashing hard into the barriers and limping away from the damaged car.

When the car was recovered and the yellows were withdrawn, Honda’s Norbert Michelisz soon went fastest with a time of 8:43.255, almost five seconds faster, and was nearly beaten by the Münnich Citroën of Rob Huff, who missed out by eight-tenths of a second, despite running wide off circuit soon after making his way past the ETCC SEAT León of Andreas Pfister.

Michelisz was fastest in sectors three, four and five before a puncture nearly sent him in the barriers at Turn 64, with Michelisz pulling over and stopping on the track.

At almost the same time, Honda team-mate Tiago Monteiro stopped on circuit with a fuel pump issue while he was set to improve, and managed to bring his car back into the pits.

Rob Huff then also suffered a tyre issue a the end of the session and slowly returned the pits, with punctures fast becoming the story of the day after both the Volvos of Thed Björk and Nicky Catsburg had failures in the earlier test session.

Tom Chilton finished the session third in the Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën ahead of Catsburg, who didn’t improve on his earlier time, with ROAL Chevrolet driver Tom Coronel setting a last-minute improvement to go fifth fastest.

The Citroën of Mehdi Bennani was sixth fastest ahead of Tiago Monteiro seventh ahead of Volvo’s Néstor Girolami and Campos Chevrolet driver Esteban Guerrieri, with Honda’s Ryo Michigami completing the top ten.

“We’re a World Championship, and we’re seeing punctures left right and centre and it’s not good enough,” said Citroën’s Rob Huff after the session. “Yokohama have to do something about this.”

The final practice session follows at 8:15 CET on Friday morning.