Hungaroring WTCC: Tarquini heads Honda trio in test

The Italian factory driver led the Proteam Civic of Mehdi Bennani by 0.061 seconds at the end of Friday's half-hour curtain-raiser.

Tarquini's team-mate Tiago Monteiro was third, while ROAL Chevrolet driver Tom Chilton prevented a Honda top four sweep by keeping local hero Norbert Michelisz's Zengo Civic back in fifth.

The all-conquering Citroen team had a quiet start to the weekend. Jose Maria Lopez and Yvan Muller both appeared in first place for spells early on before ending up sixth and eighth respectively, with their team-mate Sebastien Loeb ninth.

Rob Huff was Lada's top representative in 10th.

Tom Coronel returned to the series in his rebuilt ROAL Chevrolet after the Marrakech startline crash that ruled him out of the subsequent Paul Ricard round. He was 13th fastest after a nine-lap shakedown for the car.

Franz Engstler topped the TC1 contingent, which has increased to four cars in Hungary with the addition of returnee Yukinori Taniguchi in a Nika-run Honda, although the Campos SEAT of John Filippi did not set a time on Friday.

Follow WTCC qualifying and both races as they happen on AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live this weekend

Pos Driver                Car                Time       Gap     Laps
 1. Gabriele Tarquini     Honda              1m50.995s           15
 2. Mehdi Bennani         Proteam Honda      1m51.064s  +0.069s  14
 3. Tiago Monteiro        Honda              1m51.276s  +0.281s  11
 4. Tom Chilton           ROAL Chevrolet     1m51.349s  +0.354s  10
 5. Norbert Michelisz     Zengo Honda        1m51.433s  +0.438s  13
 6. Jose Maria Lopez      Citroen            1m51.453s  +0.458s  10
 7. Hugo Valente          Campos Chevrolet   1m51.589s  +0.594s  12
 8. Yvan Muller           Citroen            1m51.738s  +0.743s  10
 9. Sebastien Loeb        Citroen            1m51.789s  +0.794s  10
10. Rob Huff              Lada               1m51.851s  +0.856s  11
11. Gianni Morbidelli     Munnich Chevrolet  1m52.172s  +1.177s  11
12. Rene Munnich          Munnich Chevrolet  1m52.885s  +1.890s  13
13. Tom Coronel           ROML Chevrolet     1m53.181s  +2.186s   9 
14. James Thompson        Lada               1m53.270s  +2.275s  12
15. Dusan Borkovic        Campos Chevrolet   1m54.209s  +3.214s  11
16. Mikhail Kozlowskiy    Lada               1m55.526s  +4.531s  11
17. Franz Engstler        Engstler BMW*      1m56.792s  +5.797s  13
18. Pasquale di Sabatino  Engstler BMW*      1m58.334s  +7.339s  12
19. Yukinori Taniguchi    Nika Honda*        2m01.504s  +10.509s 10

* TC2