Klim Gavrilov, driving a Volcano Motorsport CUPRA Leon Competición, set the fastest time in the second Free Practice session at Le Castellet, beating the Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS TCR of Franco Girolami by a fraction over four hundredths of a second after the Argentinian driver had headed the timesheet for most of the session. Just as in FP1 earlier in the day, it was the Halder Motorsport Honda Civic Type R of Jack Young that ended the session in third place.

The first driver to post a quick lap time was Mat’o Homola in a HYUNDAI | Janík Motorsport Hyundai Elantra N, who set a 2:14.074 on his first flying lap. John Filippi, who’d earlier set the fastest time in FP1, was second quickest with a 2:14.340. One lap later, Filippi went fastest (2:13.677) and Homola improved with a 2:13.879 while Homola’s teammate Jáchym Galáš was P3 with a 2:14.078. Josh Files was fourth (2:14.366) after failing to post a time in FP1 with a faulty transponder.

After a little over ten minutes of the session, the Comtoyou Audi RS 3 LMS TCR of Viktor Davidovski set the second-quickest lap time with a 2:13.804 before Franco Girolami in another of the team’s cars went fastest (2:12.828). Davidovski then improved with a 2:13.537 and Tom Coronel in the third Comtoyou car went P2 (2:13.309) so that the Belgian team held all of the top three places. Pepe Oriola was P5 (2:13.878) behind Filippi.

Just over halfway through the thirty-minute session, Files went P2 (2:13.290) and within a few minutes Homola set the fourth-fastest time of 2:13.398. Jack Young then went P5 with a 2:13.449 and then improved on the next lap (2:13.078) to move into P2.

Then, with just over five minutes remaining, Klim Gavrilov beat Girolami’s time to go quickest. The CUPRA set a time of 2:12.787, with Davidovski also improving with a lap of 2:13.200 to move the Audi back up to P4. Girolami came out of the pits in the dying moments of the session but the chequered flag ended his attempt to retake P1 and so it was Gavrilov who ended the session with the quickest time.

Klim Gavrilov (fastest): “I’m pretty happy; it wasn’t the best lap but it was pretty good. We have some work to do before Qualifying and some videos to analyse and then we’ll see what we can show tomorrow. If I’m being completely honest, I wasn’t aiming to be fastest – I was actually trying to check how the tyres worked! I think Honda, Hyundai and Audi didn’t really show what they can do today, with new tyres and the proper pressures, so I have a feeling we’ll see some better lap times from the other cars tomorrow in Qualifying.”

Top positions

1.     Klim Gavrilov (Volcano Motorsport, CUPRA Leon Competición)  2:12.787

2.     Franco Girolami (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS TCR)   2:12.828

3.     Jack Young (Halder Motorsport, Honda Civic Type R)   2:13.078

4.     Viktor Davidovski (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS TCR)   2:13.200

5.     Josh Files (Target Competition, Hyundai Elantra N)   2:13.290

6.     Tom Coronel (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS TCR)   2:13.309

Qualifying is scheduled to start at 09.38CEST tomorrow with Race 1 at 13.40 and Race 2 at 12.15 on Sunday. Both races will be streamed live on the series’ social media pages and on the TCR Portal.

Race 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAyaT8jDBKc

Race 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPQ0Dt0fZSU