Julien Briché – who had set pole position last year – emerged as the fastest driver in the second Practice session at Monza. On a track that was nearly dry, the Frenchman and his Peugeot 308 were clocked at 1:57.726, beating Mehdi Bennani and Jimmy Clairet.
Racing lines were drying when the drivers hit the track for the second Practice and immediately Pepe Oriola completed a lap in less than two minutes: 1:59.366.
As the drivers were more confident, lap times dropped down with Bennani (1:59.356), Oriola (1:59.255), Mat’o Homola (1:59.242), Bennani (1:59.185), Felice Jelmini (1:59.032), Briché (1:58.905), Bennani (1:58.377) taking turns on top of the timesheet.
Eventually, in the dying moments of the session Briché broke the 1:58 wall and clocked a lap of 1:57.726.
Bennani and Jimmy Clairet were second and third fastest, while Sami Taoufik managed to move up into fourth just before the chequered flag was waved. Jessica Bäckman was the fastest of the Hyundai drivers in fifth position ahead of her brand colleague Homola, while Oriola was the best of the Honda patrol in seventh place. Filippi, Jelmini and Teddy Clairet completed the top-ten.
Amongst those who struggled to find the pace were Daniel Lloyd (16^th, two seconds behind Briché) who had set-up problems and Andreas Bäckman (22^nd) who wears a wrist support for the consequences of the incident he had in Zolder.
Also struggling was Luca Rangoni’s Fiat Tipo, that posted the 21^st fastest lap.

Briché said: “It was a good session because I have been able to post the fastest lap twice. It’s a very promising start to the weekend and we have worked well in view of tomorrow’s Qualifying. I really need to achieve some good results here in Monza, because the first two events of the season have been very unlucky for me. I had only scored little points and so I’m in the mood of taking the race one-by-one from this moment on.”
Action will resume tomorrow morning with the Qualifying session at 10:55 (CEST).

Practice 2
1. 1:57.726 – Julien Briché (JSB Compétition, Peugeot 308)
2. 1:58.377 – Mehdi Bennanni (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)
3. 1:58.694 – Jimmy Clairet (Team Clairet Sport, Peugeot 308)
4. 1:58.729 – Sami Taoufik (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)
5. 1:58.732 – Jessica Bäckman (Target Competition, Hyundai i30 N)