Gabriele Tarquini tops Dubai shakedown session
Hyundai’s Gabriele Tarquini was fastest of all in Saturday’s morning’s ten-minute shakedown session, leading the DG Opel of Mat’o Homola and the GE-Force Alfa Romeo of Dusan Borkovic.
The Italian set his best time of 2:27.988, faster than his qualifying time from yesterday, just at the end of the session, going four-tenths of a second faster than Homola, who’d been struggling with an engine issue throughout Friday.
Fourth fastest was Aurélien Comte in the second of DG Sport’s Opels, with Alain Menu fifth fastest in the second Hyundai i30 N TCR.
Many drivers focussed on set-ups and practice starts, including the two front-row starting Team WRT Volkswagens, with Gordon Shedden and Jean-Karl Vernay down in 13th and 14th, 1.5 seconds off the pace.
Only 16 cars took part in the shakedown, with the two Comtoyou Racing Audis of Stefano Comini and Frédéric Vervisch, the two Craft-Bamboo SEATs of James Nash and Pepe Oriola as well as Icarus’ Duncan Ende chose to skip the session.
