Championship leader Nicolas Taylor was fastest of all during the one-hour test session on Thursday evening at Monza, leading Mikhail Simonov by two-tenths of a second in a session which was stopped three times.

The Canadian popped in a time to put himself at the top of the time sheet during the final 20 minutes, with a time of 1:54.629 just under the qualifying time set by his PMA Motorsport team-mate Nicola Baldan last year in the TCR Italy championship.

Simonov, who is one of many drivers racing at Monza for the first time, was just 0.167 seconds behind with a fast time set late in the session, just ahead of Junesung Park who made it three different manufacturers in the top three.
Baldan finished the session fourth, while Adam Shepherd was the best-placed of the Monlau Motorsport CUPRAs in fifth, while his team-mate Viktor Andersson stopped early in the session and caused the first red flag.

The second red flag came about halfway through the session when René Povlsen’s ALM Motorsport Honda had a incident at Ascari. The session was finally halted when Povlsen’s team-mate Mike Halder stopped, and the session was not resumed with just two minutes remaining.

The best-placed Tenerife Trophy driver was the returning Victor Weyrich, with the Herrero Racing CUPRA driver sixth quickest overall. The best-placed of the Diamond Trophy drivers was Italian Sandro Pelatti, with the PMA Motorsport CUPRA race 15th quickest overall, 1.5 seconds off the pace.

The next session is Free Practice 1 at 12:30 CEST tomorrow afternoon.