Nicolas Baert quickest in disrupted second Zolder practice

Comtoyou Racing’s Nicolas Baert ended up fastest at the end of a red-flagged second TCR Europe series practice at Zolder.

The Audi driver set a best time of 1:36.828, which was just over half a second quicker than the BRC Racing Hyundai i30 N TCR of Mat’o Homola.

It was a strong session for Audi as Baert’s team-mate Sami Taoufik finished the 30-minute session third quickest.

Homola was again the first driver to set the first proper time of the session, posting a 1:37.354, beating BRC team-mate Dáni Nagy by nearly nine-tenths of a second.

The session was then stopped temporarily after Florian Briché hit the tyre bale at the chicane seven minutes in. The Frenchman, son of JSB Compétition team-mate Julien, then tried to bring his Peugeot 308TCR back to the pits, without success.

Briché, having to stop his car on track, then required to be towed back to the pits, causing further delay.

Once the session restarted, it was Baert who moved to the top of the times, ahead of Homola and Taoufik.

The order largely remained the same for the rest of the session, with Nagy ending up fourth.

Having finished the first session 14th in his Team Clairet Sport Peugeot 308TCR, Teddy Clairet enjoyed a much better time in FP2, posting the fifth quickest time.

Pepe Oriola was just behind in sixth, in his Brutal Fish Racing Honda Civic Type-R TCR, while the third Comtoyou Audi of Mehdi Bennani was seventh.

Oriola’s Brutal Fish team-mate Martin Ryba was eighth ahead of another Honda, the Profi Car Team Halder machine of Mike Halder.

Jimmy Clairet completed the top ten in the second of the Team Clairet Sport Peugeots.

First practice pace-setter John Filippi was only 14th in what turned out to a largely non-representative session, while Brutal Fish Racing’s Dan Lloyd was 16th.

The next action for TCR Europe comes tomorrow with qualifying. The standard Q1, Q2 session is scheduled to begin at 11:10 CET.