Photo: Macau GP

Norbert Michelisz leads Hyundai 1-2 in curtailed Macau FP2

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Norbert Michelisz spearheaded a BRC Hyundai 1-2 in a heavily truncated final practice session for the TCR World Tour season-finale in Macau.

After the preceding morning session had seen little in the way of drama, FP2 proved a lot more hectic as the red flags flew twice in close succession, eventually bringing the session to a premature close.

The first stoppage came some ten minutes into the scheduled half hour of running, when Ma Qing Hua found the barriers at Lisboa aboard his Cyan Racing Lynk & Co. This came just moments after Ben Bergwanna’s Clairet Sport Peugeot had ground to a halt with an apparent technical issue in a separate incident on the other side of the track.

Once Ma’s car had been retrieved by the marshals, running briefly resumed with 13 minutes to go. It was a short-lived resumption, however, as Li Weng Ji immediately crashed his Z.Speed Hyundai in the mountain section and triggered a second red flag.

With time running out, the session was not resumed, skewing the picture going into qualifying on Friday after the field completed just a handful of laps early on.

The BRC Hyundais of Michelisz and Mikel Azcona had been running in tandem on a sequence of push laps as the session began, Michelisz ending up narrowly ahead by 0.148 from his Spanish team-mate.

Third fastest was Yann Ehrlacher, who is tied for the points lead with Rob Huff going into the weekend. Michelisz sits just a single point adrift in third.

Huff did not record a representative lap time in FP2 and wound up 13th.

Ehrlacher’s Cyan Racing Lynk & Co team-mates finished fourth, fifth and sixth, Ma retaining P4 despite his accident ahead of Santiago Urrutia and Thed Björk – albeit almost two seconds off the leading pace.

Qualifying for the season-finale takes place on Friday at 12:45 local time (CET+7).