TCR competitors were given the opportunity to test at the Salzburgring today in two sessions, of 120 and 60 minutes respectively.
Test 1 – Pepe Oriola’s SEAT set the fastest lap of 1:26.420, followed by Attila Tassi’s Honda (1:26.474) and series newcomer Daniel Lloyd’s SEAT (1:26.555).
It was an incredibly close session with 18 drivers covered by 1.1 seconds and the top-five breaking last year’s lap record set by Tassi in Q1 (2:26.683).
Stefano Comini was the fastest of the Audi patrol in fourth (1:26.622), Dušan Borković’s Alfa Romeo was eighth fastest (1:26.909) just ahead of an impressive Milovan Vesnić (1:26.943 in his Audi); the best-placed Volkswagen and Opel cars were Rob Huff’s Golf (10th in 1:27.040) and Thomas Jäger’s Astra (11th in 1:27.084). Duncan Ende’s SEAT was classified 18th, but only 1.109 seconds from Oriola.
The session was disrupted once by the red flag, when Jens Reno Møller’s Honda spun off at the first chicane and gently hit the tyre wall; the impact caused only small damage to the rear bumper. Later on Thomas Jäger lost control of his Opel in the same spot but stopped onto the gravel trap.
Test 2 – Lukoil Craft-Bamboo SEAT cars topped the second session with Lloyd (2:26.325) fastest ahead of Oriola (2:26.373) and James Nash (2:26.612). Huff posted the fourth fastest time (2:26.926), followed by Vesnić (2:26.946) and Jäger (2:27.080).
The session was cut short by the red flag when Attila Tassi had a big shunt at Turn 11; he was sent to the medical centre for checks and discharged soon afterwards.
There were a few other incidents during this session: Morbidelli went off at Turn 12, Vernay at Turn 11 because of a puncture and Homola stopped at Turn 5 with a broken steering arm. None of the cars was significantly damaged.
Action on track will resume tomorrow at 10:00 with the first Free Practice.
