Yann Ehrlacher sets opening Nordschleife practice pace with late effort
Cyan Racing’s Yann Ehrlacher topped the opening practice session of the World Touring Car Cup season at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, edging team-mate Thed Björk in a Lynk & Co one-two.
The defending champion set a best time of 8m57.720 to end the 40-minute session quickest by 1.255s from Björk, with each posting their quickest times in the final five minutes.
Luca Engstler was third fastest in his Team Engstler Hyundai Elantra N, a further tenth back from Björk, while Attila Tassi was the best of the Hondas in fourth.
While Cyan Racing occupied the top two positions on the leaderboard, it was more abrupt ending to the opening salvo of the weekend for Yvan Muller, who crashed in the final two minutes around the Hatzenbach section of the track.
His car was only slightly damaged but the incident did bring a premature end to the session.
In what turned out to be a largely uneventful session, it was the fourth Lynk & Co of Santiago Urrutia who set the initial pace early on, before being usurped by the Honda of Nestor Girolami.
The Argentinian set a time of 9m00.423 but was then beaten by Ehrlacher’s time which was just over a tenth quicker at the time.
Engstler, who is in his second full-season of WTCR this year, then shot to the top of the standings by becoming the first driver to dip below the nine-minute marker, with a time of 8m59.103.
Ehrlacher responded however and went faster by 1.383s than Englster, with Björk also beating the German’s time.
Tassi ended the session fourth quickest, nearly four-tenths quicker than Girolami, while the Zengo Motorsport Cupra León Competición of Mikel Azcona was fifth fastest.
Urrutia was next up in sixth, ahead of Tiago Monteiro’s Munnich Motorsport Honda Civic Type-R and the Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS of Nathanël Berthon. Muller, after his crash, finished 10th.
Outside of the top 10, the 2019 champion Norbert Michelisz was 11th fastest in his BRC Hyundai Elantra, ahead of Esteban Guerrieri’s Münnich Motorsport Honda.
Surprisingly, BRC’s Gabriele Tarquini was only 17th fastest and WTCR returnee Rob Huff 20th, while Team Engstler’s Jean-Karl Vernay failed to set a single lap-time after mechanical issues meant the Frenchman was resigned to the pit-lane for the entire session.
Target Competition siblings Andreas and Jessica Bäckman came through their first session on the daunting Nordschleife without issues, setting the 16th and 18th fastest times respectively.
The second free practice session is scheduled to take place later on today at 19:00 CEST.
