Farfus fastest in Macau practice
Augusto Farfus maintained his strong form into first practice for this weekend's World Touring Car season finale at Macau with the fastest time during an incident-filled session on Friday morning
The BMW driver, who still has an outside chance of winning the drivers' championship, used a bit of slipstreaming help from team-mate Andy Priaulx to move to the top of the timesheet with 11 minutes remaining.
Farfus is happy with his preparations for the weekend - especially as he relishes the experience of racing in Macau. "It is a fantastic track," he said. "You are on the edge for the entire lap, and that is what makes it so special."
Behind Farfus on the timesheet was his Schnitzer team-mate Jorg Muller, who knows that his role this weekend is to help his team win the manufacturers' championship.
Chevrolet driver Rob Huff, who had briefly been quickest in the middle stage of the session, ended up third fastest overall - ahead of BMW's Alex Zanardi.
SEAT duo Yvan Muller and Gabriele Tarquini, who are the main contenders in the fight for the drivers' crown, found there was little separating them on track as they ended up sixth and seventh overall.
The first practice session had to be stopped twice because of incidents on track. The first red flag came out just 10 minutes in when Henry Ho crashed at Police and his car was left in a dangerous position on the track.
The second red flag, which brought the session to an early halt a few minutes before its scheduled end, was caused when Lada driver Kirill Ladygin crashed spectacularly at Mandarin Bend - rebounding into the barriers on both sides of the track and badly damaging his car.
Pos Driver Car Time Gap 1. Augusto Farfus BMW 2:31.228 2. Jorg Muller BMW 2:31.695 +0.467 3. Rob Huff Chevrolet 2:31.727 +0.499 4. Alex Zanardi BMW 2:31.987 +0.759 5. Yvan Muller SEAT 2:32.001 +0.773 6. Gabriele Tarquini SEAT 2:32.033 +0.805 7. Tiago Monteiro SEAT 2:32.183 +0.955 8. Rickard Rydell SEAT 2:32.221 +0.993 9. Jordi Gene SEAT 2:32.234 +1.006 10. Andy Priaulx BMW 2:32.252 +1.024 11. Nicola Larini Chevrolet 2:32.391 +1.163 12. Tom Coronel SEAT 2:32.758 +1.530 13. Alain Menu Chevrolet 2:32.861 +1.633 14. Sergio Hernandez BMW 2:33.354 +2.126 15. Franz Engstler BMW 2:34.133 +2.905 16. James Thompson Lada 2:34.786 +3.558 17. Felix Porteiro BMW 2:35.309 +4.081 18. Tom Boardman SEAT 2:35.375 +4.147 19. Kirill Ladygin Lada 2:35.644 +4.416 20. Andre Couto SEAT 2:35.874 +4.646 21. Takayuki Aoki BMW 2:37.444 +6.216 22. Jaap van Lagen Lada 2:37.731 +6.503 23. Kristian Poulsen BMW 2:38.348 +7.120 24. Henry Ho BMW 2:45.466 +14.238 25. Joseph Rosa Merszei BMW 2:47.807 +16.579 26. Lic Ka Liu BMW 2:59.648 +28.420 27. Norbertu Taniguchi BMW 3:04.005 +32.777 28. Stefano D'Aste BMW no time 29. Kit Meng Lei BMW no time
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