WTCC Marrakech: Jose Maria Lopez fastest in free practice
Reigning World Touring Car champion Jose Maria Lopez set the pace in both free practice sessions at the second round of the season in Marrakech
After a 10-minute delay at the start of first practice due to technical problems at the circuit, Lopez had an early pace-setting time disallowed for abusing track limits.
That allowed Gabriele Tarquini, Rob Huff and Yvan Muller to take turns at the top of the order before Lopez moved ahead with just over 10 minutes remaining with a 1m44.057s.
Sebastien Loeb followed in second place but the nine-time World Rally champion was then relegated to fourth by his own team's entry with Mehdi Bennani behind the wheel and by factory team-mate Muller.
Loeb improved at the chequered flag though to reclaim P2, finishing up nearly two tenths adrift of Lopez.
Behind Bennani and Muller, Tarquini prevented a Citroen lock-out of the top five places by finishing ahead of Ma Qing Hua.
Lopez led the first half of the second session before a flurry of quick laps concluded with Muller in top spot.
He stayed there until there were four minutes left on the clock when Loeb bettered his time, before Lopez returned to P1 with a 1m43.540s.
The session was red flagged shortly afterwards when Huff locked up into Turn 4 and went straight on into the tyre barrier.
The Lada driver was able to pick reverse and get going again, but his car shed its bonnet onto the circuit.
Loeb, Muller and Ma rounded out another all-Citroen top four ahead of Honda's Tiago Monteiro and Bennani.
Tom Chilton was the quickest of the Chevrolets in both sessions in P7, one place ahead of ROAL Motorsport Tom Coronel in the second segment.
The Briton will fall to the back of the grid in qualifying however after fitting an upgraded engine from RML for this weekend.
FREE PRACTICE 1:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m44.057s | - | 10 |
2 | Sebastien Loeb | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m44.225s | 0.168s | 12 |
3 | Mehdi Bennani | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 1m44.318s | 0.261s | 13 |
4 | Yvan Muller | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m44.420s | 0.363s | 13 |
5 | Gabriele Tarquini | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 1m44.585s | 0.528s | 12 |
6 | Ma Qinghua | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m44.674s | 0.617s | 13 |
7 | Tom Chilton | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m44.835s | 0.778s | 11 |
8 | Tiago Monteiro | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 1m44.889s | 0.832s | 12 |
9 | Norbert Michelisz | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | 1m44.898s | 0.841s | 12 |
10 | Rob Huff | LADA Sport Rosneft | Lada | 1m44.930s | 0.873s | 13 |
11 | Tom Coronel | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m45.235s | 1.178s | 9 |
12 | Dusan Borkovic | Proteam Racing | Honda | 1m45.269s | 1.212s | 13 |
13 | Hugo Valente | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 1m45.304s | 1.247s | 12 |
14 | Stefano D'Aste | All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m45.958s | 1.901s | 14 |
15 | James Thompson | LADA Sport Rosneft | Lada | 1m46.612s | 2.555s | 11 |
16 | Gregoire Demoustier | Craft-Bamboo Racing | Chevrolet | 1m46.830s | 2.773s | 14 |
17 | Mikhail Kozlovskiy | LADA Sport Rosneft | Lada | 1m46.956s | 2.899s | 14 |
18 | John Filippi | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 1m47.531s | 3.474s | 13 |
FREE PRACTICE 2:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m43.540s | - | 10 |
2 | Sebastien Loeb | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m43.646s | 0.106s | 11 |
3 | Yvan Muller | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m43.701s | 0.161s | 9 |
4 | Ma Qinghua | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1m43.825s | 0.285s | 11 |
5 | Tiago Monteiro | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 1m44.189s | 0.649s | 12 |
6 | Mehdi Bennani | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 1m44.272s | 0.732s | 13 |
7 | Tom Chilton | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m44.353s | 0.813s | 9 |
8 | Tom Coronel | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m44.399s | 0.859s | 11 |
9 | Gabriele Tarquini | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 1m44.465s | 0.925s | 11 |
10 | Hugo Valente | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 1m44.594s | 1.054s | 8 |
11 | Rob Huff | LADA Sport Rosneft | Lada | 1m44.749s | 1.209s | 10 |
12 | Norbert Michelisz | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | 1m45.069s | 1.529s | 11 |
13 | Dusan Borkovic | Proteam Racing | Honda | 1m45.145s | 1.605s | 11 |
14 | Stefano D'Aste | All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m45.626s | 2.086s | 13 |
15 | John Filippi | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 1m45.959s | 2.419s | 10 |
16 | James Thompson | LADA Sport Rosneft | Lada | 1m46.642s | 3.102s | 7 |
17 | Gregoire Demoustier | Craft-Bamboo Racing | Chevrolet | 1m46.746s | 3.206s | 12 |
18 | Mikhail Kozlovskiy | LADA Sport Rosneft | Lada | 1m46.916s | 3.376s | 6 |
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