Argentina WTCC: Guerrieri keeps top spot in final practice

The gaps came down significantly since FP1, with Jose Maria Lopez having closed to one tenth of a second in his C-Elysee WTCC, while his Citroen Racing teammate Yvan Muller finished third.

The session started positively for the championship leader, as he was fastest in the early stages ahead of the three factory Hondas, with Norbert Michelisz ahead of Rob Huff and Tiago Monteiro, followed by Muller.

However, with eight minutes into the session, Guerrieri took the lead by over half a second. In less than 10 minutes of Guerrieri setting the fastest time, Lopez re-took the lead by clocking a 1m43.386s.

Lopez thus jumped ahead of Muller, shortly joined by Sebastien Loeb Racing’s Tom Chilton who went third fastest, making it a provisional 1-2-3 for the French cars.

Just as the chequered flag fell, Guerrieri went faster still on his final run, one tenth quicker than championship leader Lopez, with Muller and Chilton slipping down to third and fourth respectively.

Tiago Monteiro finished the session fifth ahead of Honda teammate Huff, while Tom Coronel managed a positive seventh in his ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet.

Michelisz finished the session eighth ahead of Munnich Chevrolet’s James Thompson, with Campos Racing’s John Filippi completing the top ten.

The Volvos continue to struggle, with Robert Dahlgren the highest-placed driver of the Swedish manufacturer in 16th.

Lada also seem to have lost the pace they had shown in this morning’s session, with Nicky Catsburg going no further than 12th and Gabriele Tarquini stopping his Vesta TC1 on the track due to a technical issue with two minutes to go, running outside the top ten.

FP2 results:

Pos	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Esteban Guerrieri	Chevrolet	7	1'43.247
2	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroën	8	1'43.386	0.139
3	Yvan Muller	Citroën	11	1'43.567	0.320
4	Tom Chilton	Citroën	10	1'43.678	0.431
5	Tiago Monteiro	Honda	13	1'43.814	0.567
6	Rob Huff	Honda	13	1'44.013	0.766
7	Tom Coronel	Chevrolet	13	1'44.062	0.815
8	Norbert Michelisz	Honda	13	1'44.071	0.824
9	James Thompson	Chevrolet	13	1'44.211	0.964
10	John Filippi	Chevrolet	11	1'44.251	1.004
11	Mehdi Bennani	Citroën	12	1'44.339	1.092
12	Nicky Catsburg	LADA	13	1'44.818	1.571
13	Gabriele Tarquini	LADA	8	1'44.932	1.685
14	Grégoire Demoustier	Citroën	8	1'45.249	2.002
15	Hugo Valente	LADA	6	1'45.713	2.466
16	Robert Dahlgren	Volvo	12	1'45.845	2.598
17	Thed Björk	Volvo	4	1'46.621	3.374