SP Compétition’s Aurélien Comte led the way in the two free practice sessions at Zolder, with the first session starting in the dry before turning wet, while the second session was run fully under wet conditions, with the cars nearly 15 seconds off the pace.

Comte was quick to put down a time of 1:38.447 in his CUPRA Leon VZ TCR to top the time sheets, before the rain started to fall and no one was then able to notably improve their lap times.

Some drivers opted to try a mixed slick and wet tyre set-up later in the session, before returning to slicks which were still the optimum tyre in the greasy conditions.

During the one hour gap between sessions the rain began to fall even more heavily, wet the KUMHO wet tyre the choice for the final session.

Franco Girolami, despite carrying the maximum 40kg of compensation weight, was able to set the early running, before Comte was able to steadily improve his lap times later in the session, ending up with a time of 1:52.261, just 23-thousandths of a second ahead of Girolami.

Ruben Volt was the fastest of the Hondas, with the Estonian driver half a second back in his ALM Motorsport-run Honda Civic.

Rubén Fernández was the quickest of the Diamond Trophy contenders in fourth in his GOAT Racing Honda, while Ignacio Montenegro was the fastest rookie in sixth position.

The next session is qualifying which is scheduled for 11:20 CEST on Saturday morning.