Yvan Muller proved once again that the Chevrolet Cruzer remains the car to beat in the World Touring Car Championship, posting the fastest lap time in second free practice at Monza.
Click here for the full second practice times.
The session finished with a Chevrolet 1-2-3-4-5, despite all cars carrying the maximum 40 kg of compensation ballast for being the championship winning car. Muller finished 0.789 seconds clear of bamboo engnieering’s Alex MacDowall, team-mate tom Chilton, bamboo’s James Nash and Nika Racing’s Michel Nykjær.
Gabriele Tarquini was the fastest non-Chevrolet driver, placing his works Honda sixth fastest, some 1.315 seconds off the pace. He was followed by reigning champion Rob Huff in seventh.
Pepe Oriola was eighth fastest, ahead of James Thompson and Fernando Monje. The session ended with five British drivers inside the top ten.
Tarquini’s Honda team-mate Tiago Monteiro could only manage 12th quickest, dropping down the order in the second half of the session as a number of drivers began ‘towing’ their team-mates, practicing an essential Monza technique.
It was a difficult practice session for the WTCC’s German drivers, with Marc Basseng 17th, Franz Engstler 19th and René Münnich 23rd. Münnich Motorsport in particular stayed at the circuit until the early hours of Saturday morning readying their trio of SEAT Leóns for their WTCC début.
Charles Kaki Ng, who suffered a crash in first practice, only took to the circuit late in the session after the damage to his BMW had been repaired. He finished 24th and last.
WTCC Qualifying takes place at 15:00 CET (14:00 GMT).