Stefano Comini posted the fastest lap in half-wet session that ended up with Volkswagen, Honda and SEAT filling the first three places in the time sheet.
A light rain hit the track just before the beginning of the session, forcing the race control to show the ‘wet track’ board. All drivers went for rain tyres and Gianni Morbidelli set the fastest lap of 2:03.093, beating Aku Pellinen’s 2:03.445 and Jean-Karl Vernay’s 2:03.617.
Halfway through the session the rain eased a little bit and Stefano Comini managed to clock the fastest time for good with a lap of 2:02.233.
However, most of the drivers preferred no to take risks; among those few who improved their lap times was Attila Tassi who climbed to third (2:03.353), demoting Pellinen and Vernay to fourth and fifth respectively.
Francisco Mora was placed sixth (2:04.290) ahead of Dušan Borković (2:04.403) and Luca Rangoni’s Subaru (2:04.471).
Pepe Oriola was the only driver of Craft-Bamboo Lukoil to take part, but he only covered three slow laps in order to run the brakes in, while his teammates Sergey Afanasyev and James Nash elected not to leave the pits at all, as the forecast for the weekend is for dry weather. Michela Cerruti’s Alfa Romeo Giulietta suffered from engine gremlins.
TCR drivers will make their next appearance in the second Free Practice session tomorrow at 10:15 local time.