The two Audi Sport Team Comtoyou Audi RS 3 LMS cars of Frédéric Vervisch and Rob Huff ended Free Practice 1 in Portimão in first and second places, with the two teammates separated by just five-thousandths of a second. The BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse Elantra N of Mikel Azcona completed the top three while the leading TCR Europe driver was Tom Coronel in fifth place in another Comtoyou Audi.

The first competitive lap time of the session was set by the Volcano Motorsport Audi of Isaac Smith (1:53.351) ahead of the Aggressive Team Italia Hyundai Elantra N of Mikael Karlsson (1:53.916). John Filippi (Comtoyou Audi) then set a time of 1:53.212 to go quickest, with Lewis Brown (Volcano Motorsport Audi) lapping in 1:53.452 and then Dušan Borković (Target Competition Hyundai Elantra N) going P2 with a 1:53.212 before Filippi and Smith improved on their next laps with a 1:52.403 and a 1:52.955 respectively.

TCR World Tour drivers then grabbed four of the top five places, with first Mikel Azcona (1:51.701) and then Frédéric Vervisch (1:51.449) going P1 ahead of Filippi and then Rob Huff going P3. Tom Coronel then went fastest of the TCR Europe drivers with a lap of 1:51.982 ahead of the MA:GP Lynk & Co 03 of Viktor Andersson (1:52.243). Huff then improved with a time of 1:51.454 to place the two Comtoyou Audi cars in first and second places.

After pitting for fresh tyres, Borković improved his best lap time with a 1:52.521 and was in P9 ahead of Brown (1:52.669), while Norbert Michelisz went P6 with a lap of 1:52.251. Coronel then improved his best time with a 1:51.890 but was still in P4. Ben Bargwanna briefly went P12 in the Team Clairet Sport – Burson Auto Parts Racing Peugeot 308 before Yann Ehrlacher (Cyan Racing Lynk & Co 03) set a time of 1:52.608 that put him tenth.

With around five minutes of the half-hour session remaining, Ehrlacher’s teammate Santiago Urrutia improved his best lap with a time of 1:52.330 and was in P7 behind Michelisz. Then, with just over a minute left on the clock, Néstor Girolami went P4 in the new ALM Motorsport Honda Civic Type R FL5 with a time of 1:51.863 before improving on his next lap (1:51797). Bargwanna also improved with a 1:52.839 and so he finished the session in P13 ahead of Smith.

There were no further improvements in lap times and so when the chequered flag signalled the end of the session it was Vervisch and Huff ahead of Azcona at the top of the timesheet. The Cyan Racing Lynk & Co 03 of Ma Qing Hua did not take part in the session.

Frédéric Vervisch (fastest): “It’s definitely better to be at the front than at the back, but it’s TCR and so history tells us that everybody waits for Qualifying; that’s where it counts and the Championship gives us points so it’s important. Qualifying will be very important for the classification and so that’s our focus. Rob and I are working together to find our optimum in the package, as we know the competition is extremely strong. Rob is very fast, so we can learn from each other and I think we need to do that when we see the competition. Every little thing we can use to drive faster in Qualifying will be very useful so let’s see what we can do.”

Top positions

1. Fréderic Vervisch (Audi Sport Team Comtoyou, Audi RS 3 LMS)  1:51.449

2. Robert Huff (Audi Sport Team Comtoyou, Audi RS 3 LMS) 1:51.454

3. Mikel Azcona (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse, Hyundai Elantra N)  1:51.701

4. Néstor Girolami (ALM Motorsport, Honda Civic Type R FL5)  1:51.797

5. Tom Coronel (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)  1:51.890

Free Practice 2 is scheduled for 16.42 this afternoon. Qualifying and Race 1 take place tomorrow with Race 2 on Sunday. Qualifying and both races will be streamed live on tcr-series.tv and the TCR TV app.