Mat’o Homola paces second practice at Vallelunga
Mat’o Homolo produced the fastest time of the weekend to date to lead the way in the second practice session ahead of the Touring Car Cup event at the Vallelunga circuit near Rome.
The Team Slovakia driver had been quickest in the early stages of the session at the wheel of his Hyundai i30 N TCR before a mid-session stoppage caused by an incident for Kuwaiti driver Salem Alnusif, and was then knocked off top spot Tom Coronel’s Honda.
However, with under five minutes go to, Homola made his move back to the top of the pile with a lap of 1:40.692 which proved to be good enough to earn Friday honours when another late red flag brought proceedings to a close as the final laps were being completed.
Homolo would end up ahead of Coronel by exactly two-tenths of a second, with the lead Audi of Belgian driver Gilles Magnus, with Frenchman John Filippi ensuring that four different brands would be represented inside the top four with his Cupra – little more than half a second off the pace.
Jessica Bäckman was fifth quickest in her Hyundai, with New Zealander Faine Kahia impressing to put his Audi sixth on the times ahead of FP1 pace-setter Luca Engstler.
Dušan Kouřil, Klim Gavrilov and Gonzalo de Andres completed the top ten, although both Engstler and Gavrilov were on quick laps when the final red flag flew and could well have moved up the order having earlier held the top two places in the first session. Kouřil was the cause of that red flag, having lost a wheel at turn seven.
Next up will be the first of two qualifying sessions on Saturday morning at 08:30 local time.
