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SEAT leads first Valencia practice

SEAT looks set to return to form in this weekend's World Touring Car round at Valencia after dominating Saturday's first practice session

The Spanish manufacturer's Leon TDi was well off the pace in the last event at Pau, but has been granted an increase in its turbo boost pressure to 2.7 from this weekend and started strongly, filling the first three places.

Reigning champion Yvan Muller set the quickest time of the half-hour session, quarter of a second clear of SEAT Sport team-mate Rickard Rydell and half a second ahead of fellow stable-mate Gabriele Tarquini.

Tom Coronel was fourth quickest in his petrol-powered SUNRED Engineering Leon, with Nicola Larini in the first of the Chevrolets and Alex Zanardi in the fastest BMW six tenths off Muller's pace in fifth and sixth.

The fully laden factory BMW's (Zanardi's weight is calculated separately from his team-mates' due to his sequential gearbox) lined up from ninth to 11th places, one second shy of Muller.

Pos Driver              Car           Time          Gap
 1. Yvan Muller         SEAT          1m44.811s
 2. Rickard Rydell      SEAT          1m45.063s  +0.252
 3. Gabriele Tarquini   SEAT          1m45.389s  +0.578
 4. Tom Coronel         SEAT          1m45.413s  +0.602
 5. Nicola Larini       Chevrolet     1m45.460s  +0.649
 6. Alex Zanardi        BMW           1m45.493s  +0.682
 7. Jordi Gene          SEAT          1m45.505s  +0.694
 8. Rob Huff            Chevrolet     1m45.620s  +0.809
 9. Augusto Farfus      BMW           1m45.751s  +0.940
10. Andy Priaulx        BMW           1m45.806s  +0.995
11. Jorg Muller         BMW           1m45.825s  +1.014
12. Sergio Hernandez    BMW           1m45.945s  +1.134
13. Tiago Monteiro      SEAT          1m46.073s  +1.262
14. Marin Colak         SEAT          1m46.215s  +1.404
15. Alain Menu          Chevrolet     1m46.375s  +1.564
16. Jaap van Lagen      Lada          1m46.378s  +1.567
17. Felix Porteiro      BMW           1m46.452s  +1.641
18. Mehdi Bennani       SEAT          1m46.551s  +1.740
19. Franz Engstler      BMW           1m46.552s  +1.741
20. Stefano D'Aste      BMW           1m46.581s  +1.770
21. Vito Postiglione    BMW           1m46.915s  +2.104
22. Tom Boardman        SEAT          1m47.434s  +2.623
23. Kristian Poulsen    BMW           1m47.594s  +2.783
24. Viktor Shapovalov   Lada          1m47.648s  +2.837
25. Kirill Ladygin      Lada          1m47.853s  +3.042

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