PRACTICE 2 - Bamboo drivers chase RML's

23.03.13
After setting the fastest time in the first Free Practice session this morning, Yvan Muller repeated the feat in the second session, shaving just over half a second off his earlier time to lap the Monza circuit in 1:57.504.

After setting the fastest time in the first Free Practice session this morning, Yvan Muller repeated the feat in the second session, shaving just over half a second off his earlier time to lap the Monza circuit in 1:57.504. Chevrolet Cruze cars set all of the top five lap times, with Britons Alex MacDowall (1:58.293) second fastest and Tom Chilton (1:58.474) third.

Behind James Nash (1:58.506) and Michel Nykjær (1:58.685), the best non-Chevrolet was the sixth-placed Castrol Honda Civic of Gabriele Tarquini (1:58.819), while the reigning World Champion Rob Huff – making his debut in a Münnich Motorsport SEAT León – was seventh fastest with a time of 1:58.980. With ninth-fastest James Thompson’s LADA Granta lapping Monza in 1:59.119, there were four different manufacturers covered by a little over one and a half seconds.

The chicane at Turn 1 again caught out a number of drivers, with Darryl O’Young spinning there on Lap 9 and Tom Boardman out-braking himself and taking to the escape road late in the session. The Ascari chicane at Turn 4 also saw the SEAT of Marc Basseng spin before the German driver resumed.

The two-stage Qualifying session begins at 15.00 CET, with tomorrow’s two races due to start at 15.05 and 17.20.