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Macau WTCC: Pepe Oriola quickest, Tom Chilton crashes in FP2

Pepe Oriola set a new weekend best to top a messy second Macau World Touring Car Championship practice session in which Tom Chilton crashed heavily early on

The Briton lost his RML Chevrolet at Paiol with such force that his car rode up the barriers and became briefly airborne, before being sent into the opposite barrier and back, damaging all four corners.

He was able to extricate himself from the car, although barrier checks meant a lengthy red flag period.

The team has just over two hours to repair the car ahead of a qualifying session that could be crucial to Chilton's hopes of securing second in the championship.

For more insight from the Macau WTCC and F3 weekend read our rolling Macau GP blog

The session had only just restarted when Charles Ng hit the barriers just after the pit exit, although he was able to crawl his way back to the pits, his car crabbing badly.

Chilton's team-mate and practice one pacesetter Yvan Muller hit the front after the first round of laps, with Gabriele Tarquini, Norbert Michelisz and Oriola completing the early top four.

Oriola moved into second next time round, but others were denied a chance to improve when the red flags flew again just seven minutes after the restart due to debris on the track. This time the halt was much shorter.

Muller was among the first to improve when the session restarted for the final time, but he was denied a practice sweep when Oriola dropped down to a 2m31.027s, the fastest time so far this weekend.

The Spaniard then ran off at Lisboa on his next lap, although he escaped without damage.

Muller held on to second, a quarter of a second down on Oriola, with Honda's Tiago Monteiro rounding out the top three.

Marc Basseng meanwhile edged out Munnich SEAT stable-mate Rob Huff in the fight for fourth.

Gabriele Tarquini, Alex MacDowall and Norbert Michelisz completed the top eight, with the latter again suffering rear bodywork damage following contact midway through the session.

That incident came moments after Freddy Barth spun exiting Mandarin, with the Wiechers BMW man somehow avoiding the barriers. He had earlier gone off and rejoined at Lisboa as Chilton had his accident.

Franz Engstler also clipped the barriers exiting Lisboa, while Michael Soong damaged the front left of his Campos SEAT after contact with the wall just after the Melco hairpin.

James Thompson and Kin Veng Ng both missed the session - the former due to a steering failure on his Lada, and the latter as a result of the damage incurred from his heavy crash in practice one.

Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap

 1.  Pepe Oriola         Tuenti Chevrolet        2m31.027s
 2.  Yvan Muller         RML Chevrolet           2m31.256s   +0.229s
 3.  Tiago Monteiro      Honda                   2m31.930s   +0.903s
 4.  Marc Basseng        Munnich SEAT            2m32.030s   +1.003s
 5.  Rob Huff            Munnich SEAT            2m32.802s   +1.775s
 6.  Gabriele Tarquini   Honda                   2m32.842s   +1.815s
 7.  Alex MacDowall      Bamboo Chevrolet        2m32.941s   +1.914s
 8.  Norbert Michelisz   Zengo Honda             2m32.955s   +1.928s
 9.  James Nash          Bamboo Chevrolet        2m33.198s   +2.171s
10.  Tom Coronel         ROAL BMW                2m33.212s   +2.185s
11.  Mehdi Bennani       Proteam BMW             2m34.359s   +3.332s
12.  Tom Boardman        Special Tuning SEAT     2m34.692s   +3.665s
13.  Hugo Valente        Campos SEAT             2m34.882s   +3.855s
14.  Darryl O'Young      ROAL BMW                2m35.124s   +4.097s
15.  Franz Engstler      Engstler BMW            2m35.832s   +4.805s
16.  Stefano D'Aste      PB BMW                  2m36.432s   +5.405s
17.  Freddy Barth        Wiechers BMW            2m36.505s   +5.478s
18.  Mikhail Kozlovskiy  Lada                    2m36.990s   +5.963s
19.  Rene Munnich        Munnich SEAT            2m37.673s   +6.646s
20.  Henry Ho            Engstler BMW            2m38.070s   +7.043s
21.  Konstantins Calko   Campos SEAT             2m38.652s   +7.625s
22.  Filipe de Souza     China Dragon Chevrolet  2m39.150s   +8.123s
23.  Joseph Rosa-Merszei Engstler BMW            2m41.987s  +10.960s
24.  Michael Soong       Campos SEAT             2m42.207s  +11.180s
25.  Eurico De Jesus     PAS Macau Honda         2m43.671s  +12.644s
26.  Yukinori Taniguchi  Nika Chevrolet          2m44.246s  +13.219s
27.  Jeronimo Badaraco   Son Veng Chevrolet      2m44.823s  +13.796s
28.  Celio Alves Dias    China Dragon Chevrolet  2m45.917s  +14.890s
29.  Lam Kam San         China Dragon Chevrolet  2m52.448s  +21.421s
30.  Ka Lok Mak          RPM BMW                 3m00.867s  +29.840s
31.  Tom Chilton         RML Chevrolet           -
32.  James Thompson      Lada                    -
33.  Charles Ng          Engstler BMW            -
34.  Kin Veng Ng         China Dragon Chevrolet  -

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