Lopez fastest in final Nurburgring practice

Following on from the rain in the morning session, conditions were much improved for the second free practice, with all the cars returning to a dry set-up on their cars with slick tyres.

Sebastien Loeb had set the first target time in his Citroen of 8m44.067, but the times were quickly coming down, with Lopez first grabbing P1 on his first run with a time of 8m42.685 before producing his best lap just over halfway through the session, an 8m39.441.

Hugo Valente was able to bring the fight to Lopez with the Campos Racing-run Chevrolet Cruze, the 22-year-old French driver circulating the 25km track just under a second off of Lopez’s pace.

Loeb finished the session third fastest ahead of the other two factory Citroens of Yvan Muller and Ma Qing Hua, with Gabriele Tarquini the best placed of the Hondas in sixth and Rob Huff and Jaap van Lagen seventh and eighth for Lada.

Running into drama meanwhile was Sabine Schmitz, who brought back her Munnich Motorsport Chevrolet Cruze with damage to the front-left of her car on her first lap.

She was able to complete one more run later in the session and wound up 16th fastest, just ahead of the ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet of Tom Coronel, who also had limited running due to a broken flat floor on his car.

Neil Hudson / TouringCarTimes