Huff leads opening practice at Monza

Huff set a fastest lap of 2m00.183s in his Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T to just edge out the SUNRED SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI of 2009 champion Gabriele Tarquini.

Huff's team-mate and reigning champion Yvan Muller was a further 0.2s adrift in third, with fourth-place Kristian Poulsen (Team Engstler BMW 320 TC) was best of the Independents.

Compensation weights have come into play for the first time this season at Monza, with the Cruzes carrying an additional 40kg to their base weight. The weights of the SEATs and new-spec BMWs remain unchanged from the previous two rounds, while the older-spec BMWs and the Volvo C30 have had 20kg deductions.

KK Motorsport driver Marchy Lee's chances of taking part in this afternoon's qualifying session took a severe knock when he crashed early in the session, causing significant damage to the front of his BMW 320 TC.

Pos  Driver              Team/Car           Time       Gap
 1.  Rob Huff            Chevrolet          2m00.183s
 2.  Gabriele Tarquini   SUNRED SEAT        2m00.292s  + 0.109s
 3.  Yvan Muller         Chevrolet          2m00.518s  + 0.335s
 4.  Kristian Poulsen    Engstler BMW       2m00.580s  + 0.397s
 5.  Tiago Monteiro      SUNRED SEAT        2m00.912s  + 0.729s
 6.  Tom Coronel         ROAL BMW           2m00.968s  + 0.785s
 7.  Alain Menu          Chevrolet          2m01.109s  + 0.926s
 8.  Mehdi Bennani       Proteam BMW        2m01.258s  + 1.075s
 9.  Darryl O'Young      Bamboo Chevrolet   2m01.358s  + 1.175s
10.  Marchy Lee          KK BMW             2m01.691s  + 1.508s
11.  Franz Engstler      Engstler BMW       2m01.756s  + 1.573s
12.  Yukinori Taniguchi  Bamboo Chevrolet   2m01.805s  + 1.622s
13.  Michel Nykjaer      SUNRED SEAT        2m01.808s  + 1.625s
14.  Pepe Oriola         SUNRED SEAT        2m02.068s  + 1.885s
15.  Aleksei Dudukalo    SUNRED SEAT        2m02.182s  + 1.999s
16.  Javier Villa        Proteam BMW        2m02.727s  + 2.544s
17.  Norbert Michelisz   Dengo-Zension BMW  2m02.735s  + 2.552s
18.  Fredy Barth         SUNRED SEAT        2m03.641s  + 3.458s
19.  Robert Dahlgren     Polester Volvo     2m04.348s  + 4.165s
20.  Urs Sonderegger     Wiechers BMW       2m05.666s  + 5.483s
21.  Ibrahim Okyay       Otomotiv BMW       2m06.397s  + 6.214s
22.  Fabio Fabiani       Proteam BMW        2m08.553s  + 8.370s