It was a lively first practice session at Spa-Francorchamps, on a humid and grey Thursday morning, but on a dry albeit cold track. In these typical Spa conditions, local drivers performed extremely well: the top ten at the end of the session included no less than seven drivers (six Belgians and one Dutch) from the Benelux!
Benjamin Lessennes, the young gun of Boutsen Ginion Racing and one of the many TCR Benelux drivers joining the event, posted the best time in the closing minutes at the wheel of his Honda, stopping the watches in 2.33.243.
Second fastest, only 259 thousandth behind, was Fred Vervisch, the fresh recruit of Comtoyou Racing, with the second Audi RS3 LMS of the Belgian squad.
Rob Huff, who is also a Spa expert and lover, was third in his TCR International Series full time career debut, at the wheel of the Leopard Racing Team WRT Volkswagen Golf GTI he drove for the first time precisely here last week, in the TCR Benelux season-opener. The Mondron brothers completed the top five for Delahaye Racing Team, with Guillaume and Edouard posting almost the same lap time, despite different machinery: a SEAT León for the former and a Golf GTI for the latter.
Touring car star Tom Coronel was sixth in his TCR International debut, with the other Boutsen Ginion Racing Honda, despite taking the track only at mid-session.
No particular incident affected the 24 cars on track, except for a spin each for the M1RA drivers, Roberto Colciago and Attila Tassi, while the GE-Force pairing of Dušan Borković and Davit Kajaia struggled with technical problems plaguing their Alfa Romeo Giulietta cars: steering for the Serbian and suspension or the Georgian. Both the Italian cars are brand new and the team took the first practice as a shakedown.