Dusan Borkovic leads dominant Alfa Romeo 1-2 in final Thailand practice
Dusan Borkovic and Davit Kajaia dominated the second practice session at the Buriram International Circuit, with the two drivers nearly half a second clear of their nearest competitor, the Volkswagen Golf of Jean-Karl Vernay.
The first 20 minutes of the 30-minute session were fought out between the Team WRT Volkswagen of Jean-Karl Vernay, the DG Sport Opel of Mat’o Homola and the M1RA Honda of Norbert Michelisz, with the three drivers working their way ever closer to the 1:43 barrier.
However, with just over ten minutes to go, the two GE-Force Alfa Romeos stormed up through the time sheets, with first Davit Kajaia first going fastest with a time of 1:43.472, before team-mate Borkovic followed up with a time of 1:43.444, just two-hundredths behind the qualifying lap record of Gianni Morbidelli from 2015.
Jean-Karl Vernay made a late improvement to jump to third, moving ahead of Giacomo Altoè’s M1RA Honda Civic, with team-mate Rob Huff then setting the fifth fastest time, splitting the three-car Honda chain, with Norbert Michelisz and Attila Tassi finishing up sixth and seventh.
Reigning champion Stefano Comini made a late improvement to go eighth in the Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS, with DG Sport Opel driver Mat’o Homola in ninth, and Craft-Bamboo Racing’s James Nash completing the top ten, the best-placed of all the SEAT drivers in the session.
The two WestCoast Racing Volkswagens dropped down the order compared to the first session, with Oschersleben double-race winner Gianni Morbidelli 14th, and Free Practice 1 pace-setter Kantadhee Kusiri 20th fastest.
The best-placed of the TCR Thailand competitors was again Chariya Nuya, now in 17th in the Billionare Boys Racing Honda Civic, 2.3 seconds off the pace of Borkovic.
The next session is qualifying, which gets underway at 15:30 ICT (10:50 CET).
