The Halder Motorsport Honda Civic Type R of Jack Young set the fastest time in the first Free Practice session at Monza, with the Northern Ireland driver finishing the half-hour session 0.223 of a second clear of the Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS of Tom Coronel. The current leader of the Drivers’ championship, Coronel’s teammate Franco Girolami was third quickest while his nearest rival for the title, Josh Files, was only eleventh fastest.

The first competitive lap time was set by Pepe Oriola in the Aggressive Team Italia Hyundai Elantra N (1:59.125) with his new teammate Levente Losonczy a little over six-tenths slower (1:59.785). On the next lap, Oriola improved with a time of 1:58.271, with Mike Halder going P2 (1:58.869). Losonczy then improved (1:59.004), while John Filippi went P4 in the Sébastien Loeb Racing – Bardahl Team CUPRA (1:59.243). Josh Files then went P2 briefly with a lap of 1:58.573 before Klim Gavrilov (1:57.591), Felice Jelmini (1:57.850) and Jáchym Galáš (1:58.194) all went faster. Marco Butti then went P4 (1:58.160) with Girolami going second quickest behind Gavrilov with a lap of 1:57.699 before Jelmini went faster with a 1:57.572. Gavrilov then improved with a 1:57.121 and Butti went P2 (1:57.133).

Just under halfway through the session, Files improved with a time of 1:58.207 but that was only good enough for P8. Ahead of the 2019 TCR Europe Champion were Isidro Callejas in P6 (1:57.935) and Coronel P5 (1:57.769). Coronel then improved on his next lap with a 1:57.542 to go P3 but then, with just over 15 mins remaining on the clock, Young became the first driver to break the 1:57 barrier and went fastest with a time of 1:56.475. Girolami then improved (1:57.533) to go P4 behind Young, Gavrilov and Butti.

With around ten minutes remaining, Oriola was P8 behind Callejas with a best lap of 1:58.109, but a few minutes later, Files improved to move back up to P8 with a 1:58.029 with Oriola then immediately striking back with a 1:57.835 to go P7.

With less than four minutes left, Coronel went second quickest (1:56.910) while Jelmini improved his best lap time with a 1:57.315 and was fifth ahead of Girolami. Young stopped at Turn 8 and so wouldn’t get a chance to better his time, although Callejas was able to improve (1:57.593) and was now seventh while Girolami went P3 behind Coronel with a time of 1:56.953.

Coronel then improved his best lap with a 1:56.698 but couldn’t quite beat Young’s time. Galáš (1:57.516) then went P7 ahead of Callejas in the final moments of the session, but there were no other changes and so Young ended the session ahead of Coronel, Girolami, Gavrilov, Butti and Jelmini. Back in the paddock, however, Young admitted that he was concerned about a technical issue with the car.

Jack Young (fastest): “That was pretty good – I didn’t even realise I was P1! The result was very positive but I had a small problem with the car so we need to analyse that. I’m a little bit disappointed but I don’t want to jump to conclusions and so we’ll just see what it is. Hopefully it’s nothing serious and we can get it fixed. I definitely got a good lap and maybe everyone else is hiding their true potential at this point, but tomorrow’s a very different day and so we’ll have to see.”

Top positions

1.     Jack Young (Halder Motorsport, Honda Civic Type R)   1:56.475

2.     Tom Coronel (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)   1:56.698

3.     Franco Girolami (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)   1:56.953

4.     Klim Gavrilov (Volcano Motorsport, CUPRA Leon Competición)   1:57.121

5.     Marco Butti (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)   1:57.133

6.     Felice Jelmini (Target Competition, Hyundai Elantra N)   1:57.315

Free Practice 2 is scheduled to start at 17.44 CEST this afternoon and live timing will be available via the TCR Europe website. The two-stage Qualifying session and Race 1 take place tomorrow, with Race 2 on Sunday. Both races will be streamed live on the series’ social media pages and on the TCR Portal.