Moscow WTCC: Catsburg puts Lada on top in first practice
Nicky Catsburg was fastest in Saturday morning’s first practice session at Lada's home race at the Moscow Raceway.
Photo by: FIA WTCC
The Dutch driver deprived Honda of another top three lock-out at the last minute, with the Japanese marque having to settle for second through fourth, while Citroen struggled in the 30-minute session, with all cars missing the top ten.
Catsburg produced his best time of 1m38.549s with just a minute to go, dropping Norbert Michelisz down to second, with a time almost four-tenths of a second faster than the Honda driver.
Honda continue to show good pace after taking the top three spots in yesterday's test session, despite running their original flat floor following yesterday’s FIA appeal court ruling.
Rob Huff was just 0.075 seconds behind team-mate Michelisz in third, with Tiago Monteiro fourth, 0.042 further behind.
Polestar Cyan Racing put on a strong performance with Thed Bjork fifth fastest in the Volvo S60 ahead of Lada drivers Gabriele Tarquini and Hugo Valente, with John Filippi the best-placed of the independent drivers in eighth in his Campos Racing-run Chevrolet Cruze.
All five Citroen C-Elysee WTCCs were well off the pace in the session, with Yvan Muller the fastest for the French manufacturer, which are all still carrying the maximum compensation weight of 80kg.
Muller was 12th, 1.4 seconds from Catsburg's time, with the privateer Citroen of Mehdi Bennani 14th, and championship leader Jose Maria Lopez down in 15th with the remaining privateer Citroens filling out the final positions down to 17th.
FP1 results:
Pos | Driver | Car | Time/Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Nicky Catsburg | Lada | 1:38.549 | 12 |
2 | Norbert Michelisz | Honda | +0.389 | 13 |
3 | Rob Huff | Honda | +0.464 | 13 |
4 | Tiago Monteiro | Honda | +0.506 | 13 |
5 | Thed Björk | Volvo | +0.558 | 13 |
6 | Gabriele Tarquini | Lada | +0.628 | 12 |
7 | Hugo Valente | Lada | +0.862 | 13 |
8 | John Filippi | Chevrolet | +0.867 | 12 |
9 | Fredrik Ekblom | Volvo | +1.008 | 12 |
10 | Tom Coronel | Chevrolet | +1.160 | 13 |
11 | Ferenc Ficza | Honda | +1.228 | 14 |
12 | Yvan Muller | Citroen | +1.407 | 14 |
13 | James Thompson | Chevrolet | +1.490 | 14 |
14 | Mehdi Bennani | Citroen | +1.553 | 14 |
15 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen | +1.733 | 14 |
16 | Tom Chilton | Citroen | +1.937 | 12 |
17 | Grégoire Demoustier | Citroen | +2.376 | 13 |
Neil Hudson / TouringCarTimes
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments