Goldenport WTCC: Ma Qing Hua leads practice for Citroen
Chinese racer Ma Qing Hua exploited his home advantage to record the fastest time in World Touring Car Championship free practice at Beijing's Goldenport circuit on Saturday
Moscow winner Ma, returning to the WTCC for the first time since the Spa round in June, set a quickest time of 1m06.127s in an FP2 session red-flagged two minutes prematurely owing to fading light.
Honda's Tiago Monteiro topped the opening free practice session, and briefly held the fastest time at the conclusion of FP2 before being stripped of the lap for a red-flag infringement.
The factory JAS driver was testing in Hungary and Slovakia in September, but Monteiro believes damp track conditions during practice at Goldenport made it difficult to gauge the effectiveness of Honda's latest developments, which include an engine upgrade and 'joker' played for chassis homologation.
"For sure the upgrades haven't hurt us, but it is hard to judge if we have made a step forward, or by how much, because it was really slippery out there," said Monteiro.
"Traction was difficult, although perhaps I wasn't suffering as much as some other people."
The low-grip surface and absence of fast corners were favourable for the Lada Granta, now running without long-time sponsor Lukoil branding on the cars as a consequence of the team's 2015 partnership with rival oil company Rosneft.
Lada's Rob Huff ended the afternoon in second position, after team-mate James Thompson lost a provisional second when he too was judged to have infringed the red flags.
"Even if it dries out tomorrow, I think the circuit will be good for us," commented Huff. "There are a few corners below the level of the lake here, and apparently whenever it rains a lot you get an overflow, so perhaps that part of the circuit will never really rubber in this weekend."
The morning session was disappointing for the Chevrolet runners, who reported traction problems, but Hungaroring victor Gianni Morbidelli took an encouraging third in FP2, edging out reigning WTCC champion Yvan Muller by 0.032s.
The outcome of the Goldenport weekend is critical for outside title contender Muller, who trails championship leader and Citroen team-mate Jose Maria Lopez by 60 points.
Lopez was the early pacesetter in FP2, but slipped down the order behind team-mate Sebastien Loeb.
In the morning session Argentinean Lopez was Monteiro's closest challenger, ending FP1 0.170s behind the Honda man's fastest time of 1m06.621s.
The damp track contributed to Lopez becoming beached in the gravel at Turn 13 when attempting to topple Monteiro's P1 spot, and the session was abandoned with 16 seconds left on the clocks.
Tom Coronel was later similarly caught out in practice two, and the red flags were required to facilitate the recovery of the ROAL Chevy.
The Beijing track replaced a provisional date in Sonoma on the World Touring Car Championship calendar, as there was a shipping cancellation in the United States.
A customs strike in Argentina, which hosted the preceding WTCC round in August, has caused this weekend's meeting to be compressed into two days.
The boat carrying the WTCC containers was delayed and only arrived in China last Sunday.
PRACTICE ONE:
Pos | Class | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | TC1 | Tiago Monteiro | Castrol Honda WTC Team | Honda | 1m06.621s | - |
2 | TC1 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m06.791s | 0.170s |
3 | TC1 | Ma Qinghua | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m06.937s | 0.316s |
4 | TC1 | Norbert Michelisz | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | 1m07.005s | 0.384s |
5 | TC1 | Gabriele Tarquini | Castrol Honda WTC Team | Honda | 1m07.229s | 0.608s |
6 | TC1 | Sebastien Loeb | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m07.269s | 0.648s |
7 | TC1 | Mehdi Bennani | Proteam Racing | Honda | 1m07.310s | 0.689s |
8 | TC1 | James Thompson | LADA Sport Lukoil | Lada | 1m07.410s | 0.789s |
9 | TC1 | Mikhail Kozlovskiy | LADA Sport Lukoil | Lada | 1m07.471s | 0.850s |
10 | TC1 | Yvan Muller | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m07.851s | 1.230s |
11 | TC1 | Gianni Morbidelli | All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m07.867s | 1.246s |
12 | TC1 | Tom Chilton | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m07.958s | 1.337s |
13 | TC1 | Rob Huff | LADA Sport Lukoil | Lada | 1m07.997s | 1.376s |
14 | TC1 | Hugo Valente | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 1m08.206s | 1.585s |
15 | TC1 | Dusan Borkovic | NIS Petrol by Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 1m08.311s | 1.690s |
16 | TC1 | Tom Coronel | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m08.470s | 1.849s |
17 | TC1 | Rene Munnich | All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m08.702s | 2.081s |
18 | TC2 | Franz Engstler | Liqui Moly Team Engstler | BMW | 1m09.722s | 3.101s |
19 | TC2 | Michael Soong | Campos Racing | SEAT | 1m11.368s | 4.747s |
20 | TC2 | John Filippi | Campos Racing | SEAT | 1m11.954s | 5.333s |
21 | TC2 | Filipe Souza | Liqui Moly Team Engstler | BMW | 1m13.018s | 6.397s |
PRACTICE TWO:
Pos | Class | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | TC1 | Ma Qinghua | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m06.127s | - |
2 | TC1 | Rob Huff | LADA Sport Lukoil | Lada | 1m06.208s | 0.081s |
3 | TC1 | Gianni Morbidelli | All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m06.231s | 0.104s |
4 | TC1 | Yvan Muller | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m06.263s | 0.136s |
5 | TC1 | Sebastien Loeb | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m06.320s | 0.193s |
6 | TC1 | James Thompson | LADA Sport Lukoil | Lada | 1m06.330s | 0.203s |
7 | TC1 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m06.397s | 0.270s |
8 | TC1 | Tiago Monteiro | Castrol Honda WTC Team | Honda | 1m06.404s | 0.277s |
9 | TC1 | Tom Chilton | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m06.656s | 0.529s |
10 | TC1 | Gabriele Tarquini | Castrol Honda WTC Team | Honda | 1m06.765s | 0.638s |
11 | TC1 | Dusan Borkovic | NIS Petrol by Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 1m06.769s | 0.642s |
12 | TC1 | Mikhail Kozlovskiy | LADA Sport Lukoil | Lada | 1m06.929s | 0.802s |
13 | TC1 | Norbert Michelisz | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | 1m07.155s | 1.028s |
14 | TC1 | Mehdi Bennani | Proteam Racing | Honda | 1m07.505s | 1.378s |
15 | TC1 | Rene Munnich | All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m08.113s | 1.986s |
16 | TC1 | Tom Coronel | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m08.838s | 2.711s |
17 | TC2 | Franz Engstler | Liqui Moly Team Engstler | BMW | 1m09.488s | 3.361s |
18 | TC2 | Michael Soong | Campos Racing | SEAT | 1m10.430s | 4.303s |
19 | TC2 | John Filippi | Campos Racing | SEAT | 1m11.090s | 4.963s |
20 | TC1 | Hugo Valente | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 1m11.483s | 5.356s |
21 | TC2 | Filipe Souza | Liqui Moly Team Engstler | BMW | 1m12.434s | 6.307s |
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments