Honda’s Tiago Monteiro was the fastest driver in Friday’s World Touring Car Championship test session around Macau’s Circuito da Guia, with the Portugese driver 0.620 seconds faster than Stefano D’Aste.
Click here for the full testing times.
Under overcast skies Honda’s Monteiro ended the session as the fastest driver, with lap times continually improving throughout the 30 minute session. The test was ended three minutes early due to Darryl O’Young suffering a crash at the Mandarin Oriental corner, where he hit the barriers head-on.
Macau specialist Rob Huff was third fastest and the only other driver to lap the 6.12 km circuit within a second of Monteiro. Huff ended the session 0.8 seconds ahead of team-mate Alain Menu, who was seventh, and 9.1 seconds ahead of Yvan Muller, who had a difficult session and could only manage 23rd fastest.
Morocco’s Mehdi Bennani was fourth fastest, ahead of the SEAT’s of Gabriele Tarquini and Pepe Oriola. Italian Tarquini is making his final appearance in a SEAT car this weekend after seven years with the marque, ahead of a move to partner Monteiro at Honda in 2013.
The top 23 cars were covered by 10 seconds, with the complicated and length nature of a lap around Macau often resulting in significant time gaps between competitors.
There were spins for Kei Cozzolino, Franz Engstler and Mak Ka Lok, whilst Henry Ho was unable to complete any laps after the fire extinguisher in his BMW accidentally activated, filling his car with white powder.