Practice report
WTCC Vila Real
Vila Real WTCC: Huff leads Honda 1-2-3 in first practice
Rob Huff led an all-Honda top three in the first free practice session on Saturday at the Vila Real street circuit, grabbing the top spot from teammate Norbert Michelisz just after the chequered flag fell.
Edited: Jun 25, 2016, 2:36 PM
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Honda dominated the bulk of the session, with Michelisz jumping to the fore just before the ten-minute mark, coming within a fraction of Jose Maria Lopez’s lap record of last year with a time of 1m58.541s.
Huff was then first to break the lap record, which was always set to fall due to the modified chicane this year, setting two consecutive laps in the 1m58.3s before Michelisz found over another second with ten minutes left to go fastest with a time of 1m57.188s.
Huff had one last stab right at the end, and the Brit took over at the top of the time sheets with a time of 1:56.907, two-tenths clear of his Hungarian team-mate.
“It was really slippery at the beginning of the session, but the track was getting quicker and quicker every lap,” said Huff.
“The car feels good, we’re still working on the set-up, but we’re happy with (P1),” he added.
Local driver Tiago Monteiro completed an all-Honda top three, with the next closest car that of Citroen’s Lopez, over a second behind.
“The Hondas are close, but as Rob said, you have to go out there and get the grip from the track as it’s getting faster every lap, and ideally you have to be the last one across the line,” said Monteiro.
Behind Lopez, the fastest of the Ladas was Hugo Valente, 1.6 seconds from Huff’s pace in the Vesta WTCC, with Yvan Muller sixth fastest in the Citroen C-Elysee.
Thed Bjork put the Volvo S60 TC1 of Polestar Cyan Racing in the top ten with a time time of 1m59.103s, while Tom Chilton was the quickest of the independent drivers, 2.4 seconds off the pace in the Sebastien Loeb Racing Citroen.
Daniel Nagy took to the track and completed one lap after the team resolved a throttle sensor problem early in the session. The 18-year-old Hungarian completed just one lap in the Zengo Motorsport Honda Civic before returning to the pits.
At the end of the session, the ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet Cruze of Tom Coronel stopped on track with a mechanical problem, but with the session already complete this didn’t affect anyone’s lap times.
FP1 results:
PosDriverCarLapsGap 1 
Rob Huff Honda 13 1'56.941 2 
Norbert Michelisz Honda 11 0.247 3 
Tiago Monteiro Honda 11 0.464 4 
Jose Maria Lopez Citroën 12 1.495 5 
Hugo Valente LADA 10 1.566 6 Yvan Muller Citroen 13 1.698 7 
Thed Björk Volvo 10 2.162 8 Tom Chilton Citroen 10 2.389 9 
Mehdi Bennani Citroen 11 2.486 10 
Nicky Catsburg LADA 11 2.710 11 Tom Coronel Chevrolet 11 3.364 12 John Filippi Chevrolet 11 3.474 13 Robert Dahlgren Volvo 12 3.547 14 James Thompson Chevrolet 10 3.682 15 
Gabriele Tarquini LADA 10 3.739 16 Ferenc Ficza Honda 11 5.001 17 Grégoire Demoustier Citroen 13 5.242 18 Daniel Nagy Honda 2
Neil Hudson / TouringCarTimes
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