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Alain Menu fastest in first World Touring Car session at Tianma in China

Alain Menu was quickest in the Friday test session as the World Touring Car field got to grips with the Tianma circuit in China

Chevrolet driver Menu found himself in a battle for the top spot with Polestar Volvo's Robert Dahlgren and Wiechers BMW's Colin Turkington, ultimately emerging ahead with a lap of 1m05.978s right at the end.

Dahlgren was 0.039 seconds behind in second, followed by Turkington and title rivals Rob Huff and Yvan Muller in the other works Chevrolets. Just 0.153s covered the top five.

Tom Coronel was sixth for ROAL, leading a trio of BMWs with Engstler duo Kristian Poulsen and Franz Engstler next up. Darryl O'Young (Bamboo Chevrolet) and Javier Villa (Proteam BMW) completed the top 10, despite the latter causing a red flag by spinning into the Turn 4 gravel. Engstler, Poulsen, Norbert Michelisz and Mehdi Bennani all had spins too but continued.

None of the SEATs got into the top 10, with Gabriele Tarquini the best of SUNRED's sextet in 11th.

Pos  Driver              Team/Car          Time       Gap
 1.  Alain Menu          Chevrolet         1m05.978s
 2.  Robert Dahlgren     Polestar Volvo    1m06.017s  + 0.039s
 3.  Colin Turkington    Wiechers BMW      1m06.103s  + 0.125s
 4.  Rob Huff            Chevrolet         1m06.116s  + 0.138s
 5.  Yvan Muller         Chevrolet         1m06.131s  + 0.153s
 6.  Tom Coronel         ROAL BMW          1m06.757s  + 0.779s
 7.  Kristian Poulsen    Engstler BMW      1m06.982s  + 1.004s
 8.  Franz Engstler      Engstler BMW      1m07.334s  + 1.356s
 9.  Darryl O'Young      Bamboo Chevrolet  1m07.344s  + 1.366s
10.  Javier Villa        Proteam BMW       1m07.466s  + 1.488s
11.  Gabriele Tarquini   SUNRED SEAT       1m07.485s  + 1.507s
12.  Tiago Monteiro      SUNRED SEAT       1m07.552s  + 1.574s
13.  Yukinori Taniguchi  Bamboo Chevrolet  1m07.621s  + 1.643s
14.  Mehdi Bennani       Proteam BMW       1m07.777s  + 1.799s
15.  Norbert Michelisz   Zengo BMW         1m07.843s  + 1.865s
16.  Charles Ng          KK BMW            1m08.351s  + 2.373s
17.  Fredy Barth         SUNRED SEAT       1m08.844s  + 2.866s
18.  Pepe Oriola         SUNRED SEAT       1m08.981s  + 3.003s
19.  Michel Nykjaer      SUNRED SEAT       1m08.992s  + 3.014s
20.  Aleksei Dudukalo    SUNRED SEAT       1m09.508s  + 3.530s
21.  Fabio Fabiani       Engstler BMW      1m10.910s  + 4.932s
22.  Philip Ma           Proteam BMW       1m13.674s  + 7.696s

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