Mikel Azcona fastest in Macau practice on Thursday

Hyundai’s Mikel Azcona was the fastest driver overall in Thursday’s practice sessions for the TCR World Tour on the streets of Macau, with the quickest lap coming in the first session after the second was twice interrupted by red flags.

The first session ran without interruption, allowing BRC Racing’s Azcona to put in a best lap of 2 minutes 29.037 seconds – just under three tenths of a second faster than Cyan Racing’s Yann Ehrlacher.

In the end, that would go on to be the fastest lap of the day, as second practice saw two red flags and the quickest lap, a 2:29.048 by Norbert Michelisz, ended up being fractionally slower than his team-mate’s earlier benchmark.

Whilst Michelisz ended the day with the second quickest overall time, most of the quick laps came in FP1, where he was also third fastest.

Comtoyou Racing’s Rob Huff was fourth, the Macau maestro 1.2 seconds off the pace, ahead of Ma Qing Hua in fifth, 1.43 seconds adrift of Azcona.

Ma later crashed in the barriers at Lisboa in FP2, contributing to one of the red flag stoppages, which was also caused by Ben Bargwanna’s Peugeot stopping on track with a technical issue.

Néstor Girolami, being run by the Macanese outfit MacPro Racing this weekend, put his Honda in sixth, the only other driver within two seconds of the pace.

Comtoyou Racing’s Frédéric Vervisch was seventh in his Audi, with the top ten being completed by Cyan Racing duo Thed Björk and Santiago Urrutia, and Comtoyou’s John Filippi.

Both Björk and Urrutia actually posted quicker laps in the early minutes of FP2, which were good enough for them to end the day with the overall ninth and eighth best times respectively.

Evolve Racing’s Lo Sze Ho, winner of last weekend’s TCR Asia Challenge, was the best of the local contingent making guest entries, putting his Hyundai in 11^th, 3.7 seconds off the pace.

Making his first-ever appearance on the streets of the Circuito da Guia, Marco Butti, drafted in to support BRC Racing this weekend, was 13^th quickest in FP1 in his Hyundai Elantra, before improving in FP2 to end up 12^th overall.

Second practice was eventually curtailed for good when Li Weng Ji crashed his Hyundai on the mountain section with 11 minutes to go and the session was not resumed.

Qualifying is scheduled to take place at 12:45 local time on Friday (04:45 GMT, 05:45 CET).

Free practice 1 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	196		Mikel AZCONA	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	10	2:29.037	–
2	168		Yann EHRLACHER	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	11	2:29.313	0.276
3	105		Norbert MICHELISZ	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	10	2:29.421	0.384
4	179		Rob HUFF	Audi Sport Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	11	2:30.321	1.284
5	155		MA Qing Hua	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	10	2:30.467	1.430
6	129		Néstor GIROLAMI	MacPro Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	11	2:30.953	1.916
7	122		Frédéric VERVISCH	Audi Sport Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	10	2:31.096	2.059
8	111		Thed BJÖRK	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	10	2:31.542	2.505
9	112		Santiago URRUTIA	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	11	2:31.782	2.745
10	27		John FILIPPI	Audi Sport Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	10	2:32.423	3.386
11	1		LO Sze Ho	Evolve Racing	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	10	2:32.829	3.792
12	71		Ben BARGWANNA	Team Clairet Sport – Hangcha Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	11	2:34.506	5.469
13	18		Marco BUTTI	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	11	2:35.547	6.510
14	22		YAN Chuang	Fancy Teamwork	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	11	2:35.946	6.909
15	21		Paul POON Tak Chun	Teamwork Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	8	2:39.109	10.072
16	33		DENG Bao Wei	109 Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	11	2:40.826	11.789
17	6		LI Weng Ji	Z.SPEED Team	Hyundai i30 N TCR	8	2:42.460	13.423
18	15		Ken TIAN Kai	QMA Motorsports	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	9	2:43.239	14.202

Free practice 2 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	105		Norbert MICHELISZ	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	5	2:29.048	–
2	196		Mikel AZCONA	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	5	2:29.196	0.148
3	168		Yann EHRLACHER	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	5	2:29.388	0.340
4	155		MA Qing Hua	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	3	2:31.005	1.957
5	112		Santiago URRUTIA	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	5	2:31.262	2.214
6	111		Thed BJÖRK	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	5	2:31.263	2.215
7	122		Frédéric VERVISCH	Audi Sport Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	2:31.780	2.732
8	27		John FILIPPI	Audi Sport Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	5	2:32.414	3.366
9	71		Ben BARGWANNA	Team Clairet Sport – Hangcha Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	2	2:34.040	4.992
10	18		Marco BUTTI	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	5	2:34.066	5.018
11	1		LO Sze Ho	Evolve Racing	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	5	2:34.342	5.294
12	129		Néstor GIROLAMI	MacPro Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	5	2:35.956	6.908
13	179		Rob HUFF	Audi Sport Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	5	2:43.259	14.211
14	6		LI Weng Ji	Z.SPEED Team	Hyundai i30 N TCR	3	2:51.980	22.932
15	22		YAN Chuang	Fancy Teamwork	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	2	No time	N/A
16	21		Paul POON Tak Chun	Teamwork Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	No time	N/A
17	33		DENG Bao Wei	109 Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	3	No time	N/A
18	15		Ken TIAN Kai	QMA Motorsports	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	3	No time	N/A