MM Motorsport’s Marco Butti set a last-minute improvement in his Honda Civic Type R to top a drizzly morning practice session at Hockenheim, with the young Italian driver leading the way ahead of the Monlau Motorsport CUPRA Leon VZ TCR of Eric Gené, and Irish racer Max Hart’s Target Competition Hyundai.

Gené had taken over at the top of the time sheets in the session with just under ten minutes to go, outpacing Hart’s Hyundai by just under a tenth of a second during his first laps at the German circuit. With under a minute to go, Butti then set an ultra-fast improvement to go quickest, a full 1.2 seconds clear of the field as the circuit conditions improved at the end of the 30-minute session.

Hart, like many in the field, was also driving for the first time around the Hockenheimring circuit in Germany, but his team are far from new to the circuit, with the South Tyrol-based Target Competition squad having raced at the circuit back in 2019 when TCR Europe was last here, setting pole and winning the race, as well as from their programmes in the TCR Germany championship.

Championship front-runner Jimmy Clairet was close to the leading duo, just over a tenth of a second off the pace in his Team Clairet Sport Audi RS 3 LMS in fourth, with RC2 Racing Team’s Felipe Fernández fifth fastest.

Butti was also the fastest of the young drivers’ category drivers, while returning driver Mikael Karlsson was the best-placed of the Diamond Trophy contenders in his ALM Motorsport Honda, 16th overall of the 21 runners.

The second practice session is set to get underway at 13:15 CEST.