Macau WTCC: Pepe Oriola quickest, Tom Chilton crashes in FP2
Pepe Oriola set a new weekend best to top a messy second Macau World Touring Car Championship practice session in which Tom Chilton crashed heavily early on
The Briton lost his RML Chevrolet at Paiol with such force that his car rode up the barriers and became briefly airborne, before being sent into the opposite barrier and back, damaging all four corners.
He was able to extricate himself from the car, although barrier checks meant a lengthy red flag period.
The team has just over two hours to repair the car ahead of a qualifying session that could be crucial to Chilton's hopes of securing second in the championship.
For more insight from the Macau WTCC and F3 weekend read our rolling Macau GP blog
The session had only just restarted when Charles Ng hit the barriers just after the pit exit, although he was able to crawl his way back to the pits, his car crabbing badly.
Chilton's team-mate and practice one pacesetter Yvan Muller hit the front after the first round of laps, with Gabriele Tarquini, Norbert Michelisz and Oriola completing the early top four.
Oriola moved into second next time round, but others were denied a chance to improve when the red flags flew again just seven minutes after the restart due to debris on the track. This time the halt was much shorter.
Muller was among the first to improve when the session restarted for the final time, but he was denied a practice sweep when Oriola dropped down to a 2m31.027s, the fastest time so far this weekend.
The Spaniard then ran off at Lisboa on his next lap, although he escaped without damage.
Muller held on to second, a quarter of a second down on Oriola, with Honda's Tiago Monteiro rounding out the top three.
Marc Basseng meanwhile edged out Munnich SEAT stable-mate Rob Huff in the fight for fourth.
Gabriele Tarquini, Alex MacDowall and Norbert Michelisz completed the top eight, with the latter again suffering rear bodywork damage following contact midway through the session.
That incident came moments after Freddy Barth spun exiting Mandarin, with the Wiechers BMW man somehow avoiding the barriers. He had earlier gone off and rejoined at Lisboa as Chilton had his accident.
Franz Engstler also clipped the barriers exiting Lisboa, while Michael Soong damaged the front left of his Campos SEAT after contact with the wall just after the Melco hairpin.
James Thompson and Kin Veng Ng both missed the session - the former due to a steering failure on his Lada, and the latter as a result of the damage incurred from his heavy crash in practice one.
Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap
1. Pepe Oriola Tuenti Chevrolet 2m31.027s 2. Yvan Muller RML Chevrolet 2m31.256s +0.229s 3. Tiago Monteiro Honda 2m31.930s +0.903s 4. Marc Basseng Munnich SEAT 2m32.030s +1.003s 5. Rob Huff Munnich SEAT 2m32.802s +1.775s 6. Gabriele Tarquini Honda 2m32.842s +1.815s 7. Alex MacDowall Bamboo Chevrolet 2m32.941s +1.914s 8. Norbert Michelisz Zengo Honda 2m32.955s +1.928s 9. James Nash Bamboo Chevrolet 2m33.198s +2.171s 10. Tom Coronel ROAL BMW 2m33.212s +2.185s 11. Mehdi Bennani Proteam BMW 2m34.359s +3.332s 12. Tom Boardman Special Tuning SEAT 2m34.692s +3.665s 13. Hugo Valente Campos SEAT 2m34.882s +3.855s 14. Darryl O'Young ROAL BMW 2m35.124s +4.097s 15. Franz Engstler Engstler BMW 2m35.832s +4.805s 16. Stefano D'Aste PB BMW 2m36.432s +5.405s 17. Freddy Barth Wiechers BMW 2m36.505s +5.478s 18. Mikhail Kozlovskiy Lada 2m36.990s +5.963s 19. Rene Munnich Munnich SEAT 2m37.673s +6.646s 20. Henry Ho Engstler BMW 2m38.070s +7.043s 21. Konstantins Calko Campos SEAT 2m38.652s +7.625s 22. Filipe de Souza China Dragon Chevrolet 2m39.150s +8.123s 23. Joseph Rosa-Merszei Engstler BMW 2m41.987s +10.960s 24. Michael Soong Campos SEAT 2m42.207s +11.180s 25. Eurico De Jesus PAS Macau Honda 2m43.671s +12.644s 26. Yukinori Taniguchi Nika Chevrolet 2m44.246s +13.219s 27. Jeronimo Badaraco Son Veng Chevrolet 2m44.823s +13.796s 28. Celio Alves Dias China Dragon Chevrolet 2m45.917s +14.890s 29. Lam Kam San China Dragon Chevrolet 2m52.448s +21.421s 30. Ka Lok Mak RPM BMW 3m00.867s +29.840s 31. Tom Chilton RML Chevrolet - 32. James Thompson Lada - 33. Charles Ng Engstler BMW - 34. Kin Veng Ng China Dragon Chevrolet -
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