John Filippi tops the times in opening Zolder practice

Target Competition’s John Filippi set the fastest time in the first TCR Europe series practice session of the Zolder weekend, beating fellow Hyundai driver Dáni Nagy by just one-hundredth of a second.

The Frenchman, who claimed pole position for the opening round of the season at Paul Ricard, picked up where he left off by setting a time of 1:37.486.

Nagy’s BRC Racing team-mate Mat’o Homola was the first to set a representative time in his Target Competition Hyundai i30 N TCR, posting a time of 1m38.324.

The Slovak held the top spot for a good 10 minutes, with Comtoyou Racing’s Mehdi Bennani getting to within just two-hundredths of a second of Homola’s time.

Oriola, who had been outside of the top ten early in the session, improved to fifth, just over a tenth of the pace of Homola before setting the fastest time of 1m38.154 to go a tenth quicker than the Hyundai driver.

Entering the final five minutes, there was a flurry of quick times with first Nagy and then Filippi improving their times to go faster than Oriola’s Brutal Fish Racing Honda Civic Type-R.

Homola ended up fourth, some six-tenths of a second adrift of the top three, while Filippi’s Target team-mate Andreas Bäckman was fifth fastest.

Bennani was sixth ahead of Paul Ricard Race 1 winner Dan Lloyd.

The British driver spent much of the session outside of the top ten, having come in and out of the pits in his Brutal Fish Racing Honda. A late effort moved him up to seventh by the flag, ensuring two Civic Type-R TCRs are in the mix.

Profi Car Team Halder’s Mike Halder was eighth quickest in his Honda Civic Type-R. The Race 2 winner from the opening round finished ahead of Comtoyou Racing’s Sami Taoufik in the Audi RS 3 LMS, while JS Compétition’s Julien Briché completed the top 10 in his Peugeot 308TCR.

The second practice session at Zolder is scheduled to begin at 16:20 CEST.