Moscow WTCC: Yvan Muller back ahead as Chevrolets dominate

The Frenchman jumped to the top of the timesheets with a new weekend best of 1m43.267s with 10 minutes of the session to run.

RML team-mate Tom Chilton was on his own flyer and followed Muller across the line almost immediately, but missed out on demoting him by just 42 hundredths of a second.

Chilton's lap did at least move him ahead of Michel Nykjaer in the Nika-run Chevrolet. Nykjaer's first flyer - a 1m43.562s - was best early on and remained good enough for third as the chequered flag flew.

Behind the three Chevrolets, defending champion Rob Huff beat practice one pacesetter Tom Coronel and Munnich SEAT stable-mate Marc Basseng to fourth.

Proteam's Mehdi Bennani and PB Racing's Stefano D'Aste backed up BMW's strong early form at Moscow by snatching seventh and eighth, although D'Aste - who hit the barriers in first practice - was one of several drivers to have a moment in the middle sector during the 30 minutes.

Huff also got caught out late on when his right rear drifted onto the grass approaching Turn 10, although he made an excellent recovery to save the spin and instead drift sideways around the corner.

Gabriele Tarquini meanwhile ended as Honda's top driver in ninth. Works team-mate Tiago Monteiro, 12th overall, ended the session in the pitlane after a water pump failure.

James Thompson earned Lada representation in the top 10 as the last man to get within one second of Muller.

Pos Driver               Team                Time      Gap        Laps
 1. Yvan Muller          RML Chevrolet       1m43.267s             12
 2. Tom Chilton          RML Chevrolet       1m43.309s  + 0.042s   13
 3. Michel Nykjaer       Nika Chevrolet      1m43.562s  + 0.295s   15
 4. Rob Huff             Munnich SEAT        1m43.805s  + 0.538s   11
 5. Tom Coronel          ROAL BMW            1m43.837s  + 0.570s   15
 6. Marc Basseng         Munnich SEAT        1m43.890s  + 0.623s   16
 7. Mehdi Bennani        Proteam BMW         1m43.913s  + 0.646s   15
 8. Stefano D'Aste       PB BMW              1m44.186s  + 0.919s   16
 9. Gabriele Tarquini    Honda               1m44.202s  + 0.935s   15
10. James Thompson       Lada                1m44.257s  + 0.990s   14
11. Pepe Oriola          Tuenti SEAT         1m44.287s  + 1.020s   13
12. Tiago Monteiro       Honda               1m44.307s  + 1.040s    7
13. Franz Engstler       Engstler BMW        1m44.415s  + 1.148s   15
14. Fernando Monje       Campos SEAT         1m44.425s  + 1.158s   13
15. Alex MacDowall       Bamboo Chevrolet    1m44.460s  + 1.193s   13
16. Darryl O'Young       ROAL BMW            1m44.576s  + 1.309s   15
17. James Nash           Bamboo Chevrolet    1m44.622s  + 1.355s   10
18. Nikolai Karamyshev   Campos SEAT         1m44.663s  + 1.396s   14
19. Charles Ng           Engstler BMW        1m44.760s  + 1.493s   16
20. Fredy Barth          Wiechers BMW        1m44.762s  + 1.495s   16
21. Mikhail Kozlovskiy   Lada                1m44.816s  + 1.549s   13
22. Norbert Michelisz    Zengo Honda         1m44.885s  + 1.618s   14
23. Rene Munnich         Munnich SEAT        1m45.183s  + 1.916s   14