Santiago Urrutia quickest in second Hungaroring WTCR practice
Santiago Urrutia kept Cyan Racing and Lynk & Co on top at the Hungaroring as he posted a late effort to go fastest in second free practice.
The Uruguayan set a best time of 1:52.326 to end up just over a quarter of a second quicker than the Hyundai Elantra N TCR of local star Norbert Michelisz.
Having set the pace for the majority of the 45-minute session, Münnich Motorsport Honda’s Esteban Guerrieri was third fastest in his Civic Type-R.
Conditions were vertitably different for FP2, with track temperatures higher than they were in the morning for first practice.
Urrutia’s Cyan Racing team-mate Yann Ehrlacher was the first driver to set a representative time in the session, posting a 1:53.296 to go over four-tenths of a second faster than Mehdi Bennani.
His team-mate Santiago Urrutia, who received a reprimand after crossing the pit-lane exit line in first practice, was third quickest, over half a second slower than Ehrlacher.
Zengö Motorsport’s Rob Huff then went fastest in his Cupra León Competición to the tune of nearly four-tenths of a second from Ehrlacher, while Urrutia’s attempt to set a second flying lap came unstuck as he encountered traffic and had to bail.
Guerrieri was next to hit the top of the times in his Honda, posting a time of 1:52.899 which looked to have been good enough to end the session quickest, before late efforts from Michelisz and Urrutia.
His third fastest time was just 0.403s slower than Urrutia, although with significant weight ballast in the car as a result of the championship standings coming into the weekend, Guerrieri may have his work cut out in qualifying this afternoon.
Huff ended up fifth fastest, as Hyundai’s Mikel Azcona put in a late improvement to take fourth, two hundredths adrift of Guerrieri.
Girolami was sixth ahead of Gilles Magnus, the best of the Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS TCRs. Behind Ehrlacher in ninth was Attila Tassi; the Team Engstler Hond Civic Type-R driver just under a second off the ultimate pace of Urrutia.
Thed Björk rounded out the top 10, as he, Tassi and Lynk & Co team-mate Yvan Muller – who struggled with understeer on his final run – tied for time to the nearest thousandths of a second.
Yet to show their true pace, Bennani, Tom Coronel and Dáni Nagy were next up, while Ma Qing Hua and Nathanaël Berthon followed. Tiago Monteiro was the slowest driver in 17th, continuing a tricky start to his weekend.
Next up for WTCR is qualifying, which is scheduled to take place later today at 15:35 CEST.
