The second Free Practice was very close with the top five cars covered by only two tenths of a second.
Gabriele Tarquini set the fastest lap of 1:20.260 in the BRC Racing Hyundai i30 N, but Josh Files’ Target Competition Honda Civic was only three thousandths of a second slower in second position (1:20.263).
One further tenth behind was Files’ teammate Giacomo Altoè (1:20.393) who was followed by Luca Engstler’s Volkswagen Golf (1:20.523) and Luigi Ferrara’s Alfa Romeo Giulietta (1:20.529) in fourth and fifth positions.
Engstler commented: “I’m very pleased, the team has done a great job with the set up and the car is working well. I hope we can be on top for the Qualifying.”
“We have definitely improved by changing the shock absorbers that are helping us to make up for the fact that this track doesn’t suit the Giulietta,” Ferrara explained.
Engstler’s teammate Florian Thoma set the sixth fastest lap (1:20.779) ahead of Kraf Racing’s Plamen Kralev (1:20.870) who was the best of the Audi drivers.
Kralev said: “We have improved a bit, but this is not a good track for the Audi and the current BoP doesn’t help us to be competitive.”
Maxime Potty (1:20.965), Giovanni Altoè (1:21.144 – fastest of the DSG cars) and Francisco Abreu (1:21.183) rounded off the top ten. The Peugeot of Aurélien Comte ranked 11^th before Anti Buri’s Audi and Kevin Giacon’s Opel.
Innocenti-AMG Motorsport’s Denis Grigoriev had a thrilling moment at Turn 4; the Russian braked hard to avoid hitting Abreu’s Golf and spun off, beaching his SEAT León in the gravel trap.
The Qualifying will start at 15:00 (live timing and streaming at www.europe.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.com)