Tom Coronel quickest at a drying Pau in TCR Europe second practice
Comtoyou Racing’s Tom Coronel kept Audi on top in the second TCR Europe practice session on the streets of Pau.
The first session had been hit by rain, but at the end of the afternoon the drivers took to a drier track with sunshine in the sky, although only eleven actually posted lap times.
Coronel was fastest at first, before Volcano Motorsport’s Isaac Smith put in several laps that lowered the benchmark to 1:32.367s after ten of the 30 minutes in the session had passed.
He was eventually usurped by MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson, in a Lynk & Co 03 TCR, before Coronel posted the first sub-1:30 lap.
His 1:29.657 kept him in first place for three minutes before he made a big improvement to 1:26.968 thanks to the drying track, but Andersson also found more confidence with more grip and in the final seven minutes he returned to the top with a 1:25.009.
Practice one pacesetter Kobe Pauwels, who like Andersson is a touring car racing rookie, jumped into second place and the cameoing Éric Cayrolle – another of the Comtoyou drivers – went third fastest.
Dušan Borković briefly moved into second place in his Hyundai Elantra N TCR before Andersson improved up front and Coronel returned to second place, 0.820 seconds behind the pace-setting rookie.
However Coronel had more in the bag, and his next lap was a 1:23.849 that put him comfortably ahead. Another improvement after that extended that advantage as Andersson also improved, with a big gap to the rest of the field.
Pauwels ended up 1.468s behind in third, making the most of the driest conditions at the end to improve, and Borković was left 1.611s back in fourth.
Nobody else was within two seconds of the pace, and only nine drivers actually set representative lap-times.
