Chevrolet’s Alain Menu topped the first practice times in the first World Touring Car Championship practice session around the Salzburgring, setting a time of 1:27.008 to go 0.077 seconds faster than Yvan Muller.
Click here for the full first practice times.
For the majority of the WTCC drivers it was the first real opportunity to get to know the Salzburgring circuit, which is new to the WTCC calendar in 2012.
Menu was consistently the quickest driver, closely ofllowed by team-mates Muller and Rob Huff who were 0.077 and 0.484 seconds further back respectively. For a while it looked like it could be a Chevrolet 1-2-3-4, as bamboo engineering’s Alex MacDowall spent much of the session fourth fastest, before being beaten by Tom Coronel at the end of the session.
Aleskei Dudukalo was the top SEAT driver with the sixth fastest time, albeit 1.156 seconds off Menu’s pace.
Franz Engstler was seventh fastest, whilst Pasquale Di Sabatino enjoyed his strongest session of the year so far in setting the eighth fastest time. James Nash (9th) and Pepe Oriola (10th) completed the top ten.
A difficult session for Gabriele Tarquini saw the Italian only able to post the 20th fastest time, 2.456 seconds off the pace, despite completing ten laps during the 30 minute session.
The session had to be stopped twice – firstly for Stefano D’Aste suffering an off at turn 10 and secondly when MacDowall went off at turn 5 whilst trying to avoid team-mate Di Sabatino. As a result of the second stoppage, the session was not restarted.