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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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