Team WRT’s Santiago Urrutia topped the first Free Practice session at Hockenheim, leaving the rest of the field three tenths behind.
The Uruguayan driver was one of the fastest men on the track from the very beginning, as he set a second provisional fastest lap of 1:48.899 that was only three thousandths slower than Josh Files’ 1:48.896. Still in the first part of the session, the Briton improved to 1:48.689 and then Daniel Lloyd moved up to second with a lap of 1:48.747.
A few minutes before the time expired, Aurélien Comte was clocked at 1:48.666 and moved into the first position, but then Urrutia completed a lap of 1:48.330 that set also a new record lap for TCR cars, beating the 1:48.366 posted by Harald Proczyk in last year’s TCR Germany Qualifying.
“I’m a little bit surprised, as I haven’t driven at this circuit for seven years. Okay, it’s only Free Practice, but for the moment I’m really happy with what the team has done and for myself that I am improving my driving. It’s really important to be P1 because it means we are going in the right way. We want to get big points here and I think we have the pace, so let’s see if we can keep going in this way and make it a good weekend,”Urrutia said.
Urrutia, Comte, Files and Lloyd made four different cars in the top four places: Audi, Peugeot, Huyndai and Honda. Behind them three other drivers were able to lap under the 1:49: Teddy Clairet (1:48.937), Maxime Potty (1:48.972) and Luca Engstler (1:48.877). Current championship co-leaders Gilles Magnus and Nelson Panciatici ranked 8^th and 20^th respectively, while the Hungaroring race winners, Mat’o Homola and Julien Briché were 19^th and 9^th; as for Stian Paulsen he placed the best of the CUPRA cars in 12^th position (1:49.459).
Both the Renault Mégane cars of Alex Morgan and John Filippi were at the bottom of the timesheet, with that of Filippi stopped by a technical failure that the team is currently trying to fix.
The second free practice will take place at 16:40.

Practice 1
1. 1:48.330 – Santiago Urrutia (Team WRT, Audi RS 3 LMS)
2. 1:48.666 – Aurélien Comte (DG Sport Compétition, Peugeot 308)
3. 1:48.689 – Josh Files (Target Competition, Hyundai i30 N)
4. 1:48.747 – Daniel Lloyd (Brutal Fish Racing, Honda Civic FK7)
5. 1:48.937 – Teddy Clairet (Clairet Sport, Peugeot 308)