Photo: TCR

Santiago Urrutia tops first free practice at Hockenheim for WRT

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Uruguayan driver Santiago Urrutia was fastest of all in the first free practice session on Friday at Hockenheim, making a late improvement in his Audi RS 3 LMS to go fastest ahead of DG Sport Competition’s Aurélien Comte and Target Hyundai driver Josh Files.

Files had set the early pace in his Hyundai i30 N TCR, while there was a yellow flag out after then ten-minute mark when Vukovic Motorsport Renault driver John Filippi stopped at Turn 6.

When the session resumed, it was Comte who soon went fastest in the Peugeot308TCR, before Urrutia went fastest of all by three-tenths of a second in the WRT-run Audi RS 3 LMS.

Dan Lloyd, making his TCR Europe series debut, was fourth fastest in the Brutal Fish Racing Honda Civic TCR, with Teddy Clairet fifth in his Team Clairet Sport Peugeot.

Maxime Potty was the best-placed of the three Volkswagens in sixth, just ahead of the M1RA Hyundai of Luca Engstler.

Championship leader Gilles Magnus was eighth in the second of the two Audis, his entered by Comtoyou Racing, with Hungary Race 2 winner Julien Briché’s Peugeot, and the WestCoast Racing Volkswagen of Gianni Morbidelli completing the top ten.

The top Cupra was Stian Paulsen, making his series return in 12th.

The second practice session takes place at 16:40 CEST.