Farfus tops first Okayama practice

The Brazilian's 1m38.085s lap came 11 minutes into the half-hour session and was enough to keep his RBM BMW on top for the remainder.

Prior to Farfus going quickest, Scandinavian Touring Car champion Robert Dahlgren had led proceedings in his Polestar Volvo.

Dahlgren, who was the first man to set a time on the track, which had dried out considerably since overnight rain, wound up second quickest courtesy of that early lap, 0.520 seconds down on Farfus.

Alain Menu was the best of the Chevrolet drivers in third ahead of his team-mate Rob Huff - who did not venture out on track until there were just eight minutes left - and Norbert Michelisz's Zengo-Dension SEAT.

Championship leader Yvan Muller was seventh in his Chevrolet ahead of the main title rival Andy Priaulx (RBM BMW) and Tiago Monteiro, in the best of the SR-Sport SEATs.

Series returnee Colin Turkington was ninth, 0.8s off the pace in his WSR BMW. Tom Coronel (SR-Sport SEAT) completed the top 10.

World champion Gabriele Tarquini was 11th for SR-Sport while the Poulsen Motorsport BMW of Kristian Poulsen was the best of the independent entrants in 12th.

Macanese driver Henry Ho spun his BMW into the gravel at Williams corner at mid-distance and Mehdi Bennani did not complete a lap as his Wiechers-Sport BMW stopped on-track during the opening few minutes.

Things got even worse for the team when Masataka Yanagida stopped his car with smoke pouring from it late on. That brought out the red flags and caused a premature conclusion to the session.

Pos  Driver              Car        Time       Gap
 1.  Augusto Farfus      BMW        1m38.085s
 2.  Robert Dahlgren     Volvo      1m38.605s  + 0.520s
 3.  Alain Menu          Chevrolet  1m38.612s  + 0.527s
 4.  Rob Huff            Chevrolet  1m38.759s  + 0.674s
 5.  Norbert Michelisz   SEAT       1m38.761s  + 0.676s
 6.  Yvan Muller         Chevrolet  1m38.816s  + 0.731s
 7.  Andy Priaulx        BMW        1m38.861s  + 0.776s
 8.  Tiago Monteiro      SEAT       1m38.869s  + 0.784s
 9.  Colin Turkington    BMW        1m38.918s  + 0.833s
10.  Tom Coronel         SEAT       1m38.937s  + 0.852s
11.  Gabriele Tarquini   SEAT       1m38.966s  + 0.881s
12.  Kristian Poulsen    BMW        1m38.981s  + 0.896s
13.  Fredy Barth         SEAT       1m39.106s  + 1.021s
14.  Michael Rossi       SEAT       1m39.154s  + 1.069s
15.  Michel Nykjaer      SEAT       1m39.220s  + 1.135s
16.  Darryl O'Young      Chevrolet  1m39.362s  + 1.277s
17.  Yukinori Taniguchi  Chevrolet  1m39.613s  + 1.528s
18.  Stefano D'Aste      BMW        1m39.934s  + 1.849s
19.  Sergio Hernandez    BMW        1m39.961s  + 1.876s
20.  Franz Engstler      BMW        1m40.050s  + 1.965s
21.  Andrei Romanov      BMW        1m40.492s  + 2.407s
22.  Masataka Yanagida   BMW        1m40.631s  + 2.546s
23.  Yoshihiro Ito       BMW        1m40.726s  + 2.641s
24.  Nobuteru Taniguchi  BMW        1m41.468s  + 3.383s
25.  Kevin Chen          BMW        1m41.929s  + 3.844s
26.  Henry Ho            BMW        1m42.307s  + 4.222s
27.  Mehdi Bennani       BMW