Sonoma WTCC: Yvan Muller edges Norbert Michelisz in practice two

Michelisz had hit the front early, with his 1m46.299s putting his Zengo Honda almost a full second clear of anyone else after the first set of flyers.

It also seemed good enough for top spot as times then fell away, but with five minutes to go Muller stole ahead by just three hundredths of a second.

The Frenchman's time was slower however than Pepe Oriola's morning benchmark, and almost one second off the lap that earned him pole in 2012.

That showed in the fact several drivers were able to best him in sector one on their own late flyers, only to fall away over the final splits.

Chief among them was Hugo Valente, who was up on Muller all the way to the final turns, when he surrendered a chunk of time and wound up third, more than three tenths down.

Honda's Gabriele Tarquini beat Muller's team-mate Tom Chilton to fifth, with James Nash 0.1s down the road in sixth.

Freddy Barth, who returns to the Wiechers squad after substitute Jose Maria Lopez won last time out in Argentina, was top BMW in seventh.

Mehdi Bennani was second for much of the session, but ended up being bumped down to eighth, ahead of Fernando Monje and Darryl O'Young.

Morning pacesetter Oriola was 12th, although he too was up on Muller in the first split of his final run, which tailed away dramatically in the final sector.

Defending champion Rob Huff rounded out the 24 runners, finishing 2.7s off the outright pace.

Pos  Driver              Team/Car             Time       Gap
 1.  Yvan Muller         RML Chevrolet        1m46.268s
 2.  Norbert Michelisz   Zengo Honda          1m46.299s  +0.031s
 3.  Hugo Valente        Campos SEAT          1m46.618s  +0.350s
 4.  Gabriele Tarquini   Honda                1m46.654s  +0.386s
 5.  Tom Chilton         RML Chevrolet        1m46.866s  +0.598s
 6.  James Nash          Bamboo Chevrolet     1m46.948s  +0.680s
 7.  Fredy Barth         Wiechers BMW         1m47.057s  +0.789s
 8.  Mehdi Bennani       Proteam BMW          1m47.169s  +0.901s
 9.  Fernando Monje      Campos SEAT          1m47.200s  +0.932s
10.  Darryl O'Young      ROAL BMW             1m47.258s  +0.990s
11.  Marc Basseng        Munnich SEAT         1m47.321s  +1.053s
12.  Pepe Oriola         Tuenti Chevrolet     1m47.341s  +1.073s
13.  Michel Nykjaer      Nika Chevrolet       1m47.393s  +1.125s
14.  Charles Ng          Engstler BMW         1m47.435s  +1.167s
15.  Alex MacDowall      Bamboo Chevrolet     1m47.438s  +1.170s
16.  James Thompson      Lada                 1m47.439s  +1.171s
17.  Tom Coronel         ROAL BMW             1m47.476s  +1.208s
18.  Tiago Monteiro      Honda                1m47.523s  +1.255s
19.  Franz Engstler      Engstler BMW         1m47.682s  +1.414s
20.  Mikhail Kozlovskiy  Lada                 1m47.755s  +1.487s
21.  Tom Boardman        Special Tuning SEAT  1m48.179s  +1.911s
22.  Stefano D'Aste      PB BMW               1m48.347s  +2.079s
23.  Rene Munnich        Munnich SEAT         1m48.364s  +2.096s
24.  Rob Huff            Munnich SEAT         1m48.994s  +2.726s