Pepe Oriola improved further compared to the morning’s session and posted the fastest lap of the day so far (1:27.097), which makes him the favourite in this afternoon’s fight for the pole position.
However, his competitors are very close as Mikhail Grachev (1:27.255) and Stefano Comini (1:27.361) were classified in second and third position with gaps of one and two tenths respectively.
Oriola said: “A good session again and really nothing to report. We have good pace and I hope we can keep things like that for qualifying this afternoon.”
And Grachev echoed: “We did some fine-tuning on the set-up and it worked well. Also, I feel I’m improving myself continuously on this track which requires some time before you really understand it. We were also quite good in slipstreaming with my team mate Lorenzo Veglia, and being the two of us in the top four proves we did a very good job as a team.”
The SEAT cars seemed more at ease than the other machines, with Veglia, Afanasyev, Belicchi, Gené, Schouten and Nykjær filling the positions from fourth to ninth.
The WestCoast Racing Honda Civic cars of Gianni Morbidelli (2:28.098) and Kevin Gleason (1:28.274) ranked in tenth and eleventh more than one second off the leading pace.
Both Campos Racing Opel Astra cars struggled: Markus Östreich posted the 14thfastest lap (1:29.370), while Fernando Monje stopped at the exit of the pit lane with a puncture, which caused the session to be red-flagged at mid distance.
In the afternoon, TCR drivers will take part in the Qualifying session that will kick off at 15.00 local time.
