Mattias Ekström and Philipp Eng top PURE ETCR practice in Copenhagen

PURE ETCR points leader Mattias Ekström and series newcomer Philipp Eng topped the times in practice on the opening day in Copenhagen.

Cupra X Zengo Motorsport’s Ekström, who will line up in Battle 2 against the Romeo Ferraris Alfa of Luca Filippi and Hyundai Motorsport’s Jean-Karl Vernay in Saturday’s opening Pool A round, set a time of 1:09.153 to go quickest.

The Swede was some two seconds faster than Filippi’s Romeo Ferraris team-mate Oliver Webb, with Vernay a further tenth of a second adrift of the Alfa.

Ekström was on top for the bulk of the session, having initially posted a time of 1:13.789, with his Zengo Motorsport team-mate Dániel Nagy close behind. Nagy eventually dropped to the slowest time of the session as others improved.

Behind Vernay was his team-mate John Filippi who ended the session 2.4s adrift of Ekström’s best effort, with Luca Filippi fifth ahead of Nagy.

Both John Filippi and Nagy will face off with Webb in the first Battle of Pool A on Saturday.

In the second half-an-hour practice session, it was the newcomer, Romeo Ferraris Alfa’s Eng set the quickest time on his electric touring car debut.

The former DTM driver posted a time of 1:09.494, which was 1.712s quicker than the Cupra of Jordi Gené, with Augusto Farfus a quarter of a second behind in third.

Next up was Tom Chilton in the second of the Romeo Ferraris Alfas, while Cupra X Zengo Motorsport’s Mikel Azcona fifth fastest.

Rodrigo Baptista was the slowest in the session, taking his Hyundai Motorsport Velostar N ETCR to sixth, albeit over four seconds off the pace.

Practice pacesetter Eng will line up against Chilton and Azcona in Battle 2 in Pool B on Saturday, with Gené, Farfus and Baptista disputing Battle 1.

The action in Copenhagen kicks off at 08:05 CET with the first of the Pool A battles, with Pool B battles scheduled to start at 10:25 CEST.