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Barcelona WTCC test: Citroen's Sebastien Loeb leads small field

Sebastien Loeb topped the times for Citroen during official World Touring Car Championship testing at Barcelona

Driving his newly liveried C-Elysee, Loeb set what would stand as the quickest time of the day during the morning session, lapping in 1m49.972s.

Mehdi Bennani, who was fastest in the afternoon, did not improve on his morning time and ended the day 0.877 seconds adrift in his C-Elysee entered by Loeb's eponymous team.

Gabriele Tarquini had been fourth fastest for Honda's works team in the morning but improved in the afternoon to be third fastest overall with a 1m51.063s, ahead of team-mate Tiago Monteiro.

Privateer Hugo Valente split the two works Civics in his Campos Chevrolet with a faster run this afternoon after suffering teething problems with the new car in the morning.

The two Citroens and Hondas were the only works cars present, with the remaining four cars that took to the track being privateers.

Stefano D'Aste's Munnich Chevrolet Cruze did not appear on the official timing, which is being operated by a new provider this year, but his team timed his best lap at 1m51.788s.

Many teams had either tested elsewhere in recent weeks, or had only just taken delivery of their 2015 machinery and planned shakedown runs in Italy early next week.

Lada is testing its new ORECA-developed Vesta in private at Magny-Cours.

Next Thursday is the deadline for teams' equipment to be at Frankfurt for air freighting to the first round of the season in Argentina on March 4-6.

COMBINED TEST RESULTS:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time       Gap
 1.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen           1m49.972s
 2.  Mehdi Bennani      Loeb Citroen      1m50.847s  +0.875s
 3.  Gabriele Tarquini  Honda             1m51.063s  +1.091s
 4.  Hugo Valente       Campos Chevrolet  1m51.216s  +1.244s
 5.  Tiago Monteiro     Honda             1m51.319s  +1.347s
 6.  John Filippi       Campos Chevrolet  1m51.723s  +1.751s
 7.  Norbert Michelisz  Zengo Honda       1m52.045s  +2.073s

2015 WTCC ENTRIES SO FAR:

Citroen
Works: Jose Maria Lopez, Yvan Muller, Sebastien Loeb, Ma Qing Hua
Sebastien Loeb Racing: Mehdi Bennani

Honda
Works: Gabriele Tarquini, Tiago Monteiro
Honda Sweden: Rickard Rydell
Proteam: Dusan Borkovic
Zengo: Norbert Michelisz

Lada
Works: Rob Huff, James Thompson, Mikhail Kozlovskiy

Chevrolet
ROAL: Tom Chilton, Tom Coronel
Munnich: Stefano D'Aste, tba
Campos: Hugo Valente, John Filippi
Craft-Bamboo: Gregoire Demoustier

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