Slovakia WTCC: Catsburg tops final practice ahead of Volvo duo

The Dutchman came home ahead of Thed Bjork and Fredrik Ekblom after the two Polestar Cyan Racing drivers led most of the session.

The session started with Honda practising MAC3, but the slippery track at Turn 9 meant both Tiago Monteiro and Rob Huff slid wide, with the Brit taking a long trip in the gravel trap, still able to continue.

The Volvos immediately set the pace, as teams waited for a cleaner track to set a competitive lap time. It was not until the final minutes of the session that Catsburg set a time, improving on his personal best of the weekend by two tenths.

ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel also had a slide out of the track and rejoined, as did Norbert Michelisz in his Honda Civic.

With just one minute to go, John Filippi, who was massively improving his lap time, outbraked himself and got stuck in the gravel trap, triggering a yellow flag which effectively ended the session.

Catsburg was therefore first ahead of the Cyan Racing duo, with Bjork ahead of Ekblom. Michelisz came fourth ahead of a returning James Thompson, who improved by 0.8s compared to his best FP1 lap to claim fifth outright and topping the privateers’ WTCC Trophy.

Hugo Valente was sixth in his Lada Vesta ahead of Honda’s Monteiro, with an ever-improving Tom Chilton in eighth in his Sebastien Loeb Racing Citroen.

Huff came home ninth, with Yvan Muller completing the top ten in the works C-Elysee. Championship leader Jose Maria Lopez went no further than 12th, behind Gabriele Tarquini’s Lada Vesta.

Coronel also slipped down to 15th after a top ten finish in this morning’s session.

Full FP2 results:

Pos	Driver	Car	Delay
1	Nicky Catsburg	Lada	2m05.581
2	Thed Bjork	Volvo	0.304
3	Fredrik Ekblom	Volvo	1.015
4	Norbert Michelisz	Honda	1.024
5	James Thompson	Chevrolet	1.131
6	Hugo Valente	Lada	1.239
7	Tiago Monteiro	Honda	1.333
8	Tom Chilton	Citroen	1.682
9	Rob Huff	Honda	1.970
10	Yvan Muller	Citroen	1.976
11	Gabriele Tarquini	Lada	2.124
12	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroen	2.233
13	Ferenc Ficza	Honda	2.349
14	John Filippi	Chevrolet	2.360
15	Tom Coronel	Chevrolet	2.390
16	Mehdi Bennani	Citroen	2.619
17	Gregoire Demoustier	Citroen	4.281