The first Free Practice session at the Circuit Paul Ricard at Le Castellet saw the CUPRA of John Filippi set the fastest lap of the half-hour session. Tom Coronel was second quickest in an Audi, just under seven hundredths of a second faster than the Honda of Jack Young.

The first competitive lap time (2:14.641) was set by Young in a Halder Motorsport Honda Civic Type R, with Felice Jemini (Target Competition, Hyundai Elantra N) setting a time of 2:14.811. On the next lap, Pepe Oriola (Brutal Fish Racing, Honda Civic Type R) went quickest with a 2:14.450, with Young improving marginally with a 2:14.519. Jelmini then set a time of 2:14.169 to go fastest while Isidro Callejas (Volcano Motorsport, CUPRA Leon Competición) went P4 with a time of 2:14.537. Callejas then improved on the next lap to go P2 behind Jelmini with a 2:14.299 before Tom Coronel (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS TCR) became the first driver to break the 2:14 barrier to go fastest with a 2:13.924. Coronel’s teammate Franco Girolami then went P2 with a time of 2:14.110 before improving on the next lap with a 2:14.023.

As the session neared its halfway point, there were three Comtoyou Audi cars in the top four places, with Viktor Davidovski – the current leader of the Diamond Trophy – setting a 2:14.467 which meant he was fourth fastest behind Jelmini and just ahead of Callajas.

With less than ten minutes remaining, Coronel improved his best time with a 2:13.907. Mat’o Homola (HYUNDAI | Janík Motorsport, Hyundai Elantra N) then set a time of 2:14.085 to go P3 and soon afterwards Young went P2 with a 2:13.975. Then, with less than five minutes left on the clock, John Filippi (Sébastien Loeb Racing - Bardahl Team) went fastest with a lap of 2:13.644. That was the way things remained as the session was red-flagged with under two minutes remaining due to debris on the track.

A number of drivers were warned for infringing track limits during the session, with Girolami, Davidovski and Filippi receiving final warnings and Martin Ryba (Brutal Fish Racing, Honda Civic Type R) and Young having laps deleted.

John Filippi (fastest): “I think we made a big step between Portimão and now and we showed this in Free Practice 1; for sure this was a better start to the weekend than at the last round. You have to remember that it’s a totally new car for me and for the team so there is a lot of space to improve to find the right set-up. It’s good for the confidence of me and the team but it's far from over. We have another Free Practice, then Qualifying and then two races to try to get maximum points and I’m sure everyone else will be working hard to improve.”

Top positions

1.     John Filippi (Sebastien Loeb Racing - Bardahl Team)  2:13.644

2.     Tom Coronel (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS TCR)   2:13.907

3.     Jack Young (Halder Motorsport, Honda Civic Type R)   2:13.975

4.     Franco Girolami (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS TCR)   2:14.023

5.     Mat’o Homola (HYUNDAI | Janík Motorsport, Hyundai Elantra N)   2:14.085

6.     Felice Jelmini (Target Competition, Hyundai Elantra N)   2:14.169

Free Practice 2 is scheduled to start at 17.30CEST this afternoon and live timing will be available via the TCR Europe website. The two-stage Qualifying session and Race 1 are both tomorrow with Race 2 on Sunday. Both races will be streamed live on the series’ social media pages and on the TCR Portal.