Morocco WTCC: Sebastien Loeb heads Yvan Muller in Citroen 1-2

Former rally maestro Loeb set his fastest time of 1m43.427s relatively early in the half-hour session, before pitting for work to be carried out on the front of his C-Elysee.

Reigning WTCC champion's Muller's efforts to topple his new team-mate were scuppered first by overshooting a chicane and then a series of incidents.

Tiago Monteiro's Honda Civic WTCC stopped with smoke wafting from the front wheels in the first sector with two and half minutes left on the clock.

Yellow flags were required while the Honda was moved to safety, but the session was abandoned altogether when Tom Coronel spectacularly lost control negotiating one of the back-straight chicanes.

The ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet Cruze initially smacked the concrete with its right rear corner, breaking the suspension and sending the Dutchman into the barriers on the exit before spinning to a halt.

Nevertheless, Coronel ended the session third fastest, albeit 1.456s adrift of Loeb.

After impressing on Friday, Coronel's fellow Cruze runner Hugo Valente repeated his test position of fourth in free practice.

Cruze TC1s also occupied the next two positions. Tom Chilton ended the morning 0.005s adrift of Valente in fifth, but edged out the Campos driver's team-mate Dusan Borkovic.

Local hope Mehdi Bennani finished seventh, ahead of the third Citroen of Lopez, which only completed five laps.

Superstars champion Gianni Morbidelli finished ninth, continuing to regain familiarity with front-wheel drive.

"The last time I drove front wheel drive was with the Alfa [in 2006]," said Morbidelli, "but we are talking different cars, less downforce, less power, completely different cars."

Pos  Driver                Team/Car           Time       Gap
 1.  Sebastien Loeb        Citroen            1m43.427s
 2.  Yvan Muller           Citroen            1m43.654s  +0.227s
 3.  Tom Coronel           ROAL Chevrolet     1m44.883s  +1.456s
 4.  Hugo Valente          Campos Chevrolet   1m44.998s  +1.571s
 5.  Tom Chilton           ROAL Chevrolet     1m45.003s  +1.576s
 6.  Dusan Borkovic        Campos Chevrolet   1m45.076s  +1.649s
 7.  Mehdi Bennani         Proteam Honda      1m45.247s  +1.820s
 8.  Jose Maria Lopez      Citroen            1m45.272s  +1.845s
 9.  Gianni Morbidelli     Munnich Chevrolet  1m45.287s  +1.860s
10.  Tiago Monteiro        Honda              1m45.326s  +1.899s
11.  Norbert Michelisz     Zengo Honda        1m45.675s  +2.248s
12.  Gabriele Tarquini     Honda              1m45.982s  +2.555s
13.  Rene Munnich          Munnich Chevrolet  1m46.176s  +2.749s
14.  Rob Huff              Lada               1m46.297s  +2.870s
15.  Mikhail Kozlovskiy    Lada               1m47.919s  +4.492s
16.  Franz Engstler        Engstler BMW       1m49.098s  +5.671s*
17.  Petr Fulin            Campos SEAT        1m49.759s  +6.332s*
18.  John Filippi          Campos SEAT        1m52.901s  +9.474s*
19.  Pasquale di Sabatino  Engstler BMW       1m58.132s  +14.705s*
20.  James Thompson        Lada

* TC2