As it was expected, Julien Briché was fast from the beginning in the TCR Europe first Free Practice at Spa-Francorchamps.
The Frenchman, who had won last year’s second race on the Belgian track, drove his Peugeot 308 to set the fastest time of 2:31.007, beating the provisional fastest time of 2:31.556 set by Aurélien Comte in another Peugeot.
In the final part of the session, other drivers improved: Santiago Urrutia moved up into the second place (2:31.443), Gianni Morbidelli (2:31.708), Gilles Magnus (2:31.785), Davit Kajaia (2:31.858) and Teddy Clairet (2:31.881) filled the positions between fourth and seventh. Josh Files, Olli Kangas and Stian Paulsen rounded off the top-ten that included cars of five different brands: Peugeot, Audi, Volkswagen, CUPRA and Hyundai.
The best of the Honda cars was Daniel Lloyd’s in 12^th position, while Tom Coronel’s didn’t complete any laps due to a sensor problem that prevented it from starting.
Another car that suffered from a technical issue was Lewis Kent’s Hyundai, stopped by an engine problem.
The other newcomers: Klim Gavrilov and Ashley Sutton ranked 18^th and 22^nd respectively.
The second free practice will take place at 14:20.

Practice 1
1. 2:31.007   Julien Briché (JSB Compétition, Peugeot 308)
2. 2:31.443 – Santiago Urrutia (Team WRT, Audi RS 3 LMS)
3. 2:31.556 – Aurélien Comte (DG Sport Compétition, Peugeot 308)
4. 2:31.708 – Gianni Morbidelli (WestCoast Racing, Volkswagen Golf GTI)
5. 2:31.785 – Gilles Magnus (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)