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Imola Auto GP: Kimiya Sato and Markus Pommer share practice honours

Kimiya Sato and Markus Pommer shared the honours in the two Imola Auto GP practice sessions on Friday

Reunited with the Euronova Racing squad after missing the last event at Monza, Sato, who heads Pommer in the championship by just nine points following the German's Monza win, had initially set an identical time to his title rival.

It took until the final minute of the afternoon session for the Japanese to move ahead on a 1m32.349s, just over five hundredths of a second faster.

Pommer had earlier topped the timesheets in the morning session with a 1m32.380s lap in his Super Nova run Lola-Zytek.

Michela Cerruti continued to show encouraging pace following her Monza podium with the third-best time in the morning session.

Monza race two victor Kevin Giovesi, now racing under the FMS banner, placed fourth and third in the two sessions while his team-mate and reigning champion Vittorio Ghirelli encountered gearbox issues in the morning, restricting his running to just a handful of laps.

Ghirelli is making another return to the series this weekend, having previously finished second at the Hungaroring in May before sitting out Monza last month. He had begun the season in Indy Lights.

Pal Varhaug also makes a return to Auto GP at Imola after finishing runner-up in the series two years ago. The Norwegian placed fifth and fourth in the Friday sessions in his Virtuosi UK entered Lola-Zytek.

Varhaug is competing a full season of GP3 with Jenzer Motorsport, and is using the Auto GP event to hone his qualifying performances for the rest of his 2014 campaign.

Tamas Pal Kiss endured a disappointing start to the weekend with an engine-related problem in his Zele Racing prepared Lola in the morning.

The Hungarian, who is third in the points standings and making his Imola debut this weekend, was forced to sit out most of the opening session while first the spark plugs and then the wiring loom were changed on his car.

A similar problem in the second session left Kiss with just nine compromised laps under his belt as he goes into qualifying on Saturday morning.

Practice one:

Pos  Driver                 Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Markus Pommer          Super Nova       1m32.380s
 2.  Kimiya Sato            Euronova         1m32.761s  +0.381s
 3.  Michela Cerruti        Super Nova       1m33.237s  +0.857s
 4.  Kevin Giovesi          FMS              1m33.374s  +0.994s
 5.  Pal Varhaug            Virtuosi UK      1m33.481s  +1.101s
 6.  Christof von Grunigen  Zele             1m34.020s  +1.640s
 7.  Andrea Roda            Virtuosi UK      1m34.039s  +1.659s
 8.  Giuseppe Cipriani      Ibiza            1m34.727s  +2.347s
 9.  Francesco Dracone      Super Nova       1m34.997s  +2.617s
10.  Tamas Pal Kiss         Zele             1m35.254s  +2.874s
11.  Michele La Rosa        MLR 71/Euronova  1m35.654s  +3.274s
12.  Vittorio Ghirelli      FMS              1m42.034s  +9.654s
13.  Salvatore De Plano     Euronova         1m43.457s  +11.077s

Practice two:

Pos  Driver                 Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Kimiya Sato            Euronova         1m32.349s
 2.  Markus Pommer          Super Nova       1m32.401s  +0.052s
 3.  Kevin Giovesi          FMS              1m33.728s  +0.379s
 4.  Pal Varhaug            Virtuosi UK      1m33.330s  +0.981s
 5.  Michela Cerruti        Super Nova       1m33.351s  +1.002s
 6.  Andrea Roda            Virtuosi UK      1m33.539s  +1.190s
 7.  Christof von Grunigen  Zele             1m33.873s  +1.524s
 8.  Francesco Dracone      Super Nova       1m34.185s  +1.836s
 9.  Vittorio Ghirelli      FMS              1m34.473s  +2.124s
10.  Michele La Rosa        MLR 71/Euronova  1m34.684s  +2.335s
11.  Giuseppe Cipriani      Ibiza            1m34.805s  +2.456s
12.  Salvatore De Plano     Euronova         1m39.757s  +7.408s
13.  Tamas Pal Kiss         Zele             1m42.236s  +9.887s

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