Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Shanghai WTCC: Alain Menu heads Chevrolet clean-sweep in FP2

Alain Menu topped the final free practice session for the penultimate round of the World Touring Car Championship at Shanghai on Saturday morning

As the factory Chevrolet Cruzes revealed more of their potential, each of the team's three drivers held the top spot during the session.

But it was Swiss veteran Menu, an outside bet for this year's title, who secured the fastest time with a 1m55.874s lap.

Yvan Muller was just 0.039s further back in second ahead of Rob Huff, with whom he shares the championship lead. The focus of the weekend will inevitably be the finely-poised battle in the drivers' standings between the RML Chevy men.

ROAL Motorsport's Tom Coronel took his BMW around 0.1s quicker than in the earlier session to wind up as the best of the non-Cruze drivers in fourth.

Independents' points leader Norbert Michelisz was fifth fastest, although the Zengo BMW racer was over 1s slower then Menu's impressive benchmark.

Michelisz's rival for the Independents' Trophy, Pepe Oriola, was down in 11th, following a drama-filled opening session in which his SUNRED SEAT stopped out on track.

Lukoil SEAT driver Gabriele Tarquini completed the top six ahead of a respectable effort from Special Tuning's Tom Boardman, who edged out the WSR Chevrolet of series returnee and FP1 pacesetter Colin Turkington.

Despite several drivers reporting a low-grip track, a half-spin by Kelvin Leong's Honda Accord and a quick rotation by Alex Liu's Engstler BMW were among relatively few incidents.

Pos  Driver             Team/Car                Time       Gap
 1.  Alain Menu         Chevrolet               1m55.874s
 2.  Yvan Muller        Chevrolet               1m55.913s  + 0.039s
 3.  Rob Huff           Chevrolet               1m56.349s  + 0.475s
 4.  Tom Coronel        ROAL BMW                1m56.766s  + 0.892s
 5.  Norbert Michelisz  Zengo BMW               1m57.031s  + 1.157s
 6.  Gabriele Tarquini  Lukoil SEAT             1m57.059s  + 1.185s
 7.  Tom Boardman       Special Tuning SEAT     1m57.250s  + 1.376s
 8.  Colin Turkington   WSR Chevrolet           1m57.303s  + 1.429s
 9.  Alberto Cerqui     ROAL BMW                1m57.319s  + 1.445s
10.  Mehdi Bennani      Proteam BMW             1m57.362s  + 1.488s
11.  Pepe Oriola        SUNRED SEAT             1m57.444s  + 1.570s
12.  Aleksei Dudukalo   Lukoil SEAT             1m57.451s  + 1.577s
13.  Darryl O'Young     Bamboo Chevrolet        1m57.511s  + 1.637s
14.  Hugo Valente       SUNRED SEAT             1m57.631s  + 1.680s
15.  Tiago Monteiro     Honda                   1m57.631s  + 1.757s
16.  Franz Engstler     Engstler BMW            1m57.661s  + 1.787s
17.  Fredy Barth        SUNRED SEAT             1m57.700s  + 1.826s
18.  Alex MacDowall     Bamboo Chevrolet        1m57.834s  + 1.960s
19.  Stefano D'Aste     Wiechers BMW            1m57.977s  + 2.103s
20.  Charles Ng         Engstler BMW            1m58.037s  + 2.163s
21.  James Nash         Arena Ford              1m58.220s  + 2.346s
22.  Tom Chilton        Arena Ford              1m58.252s  + 2.378s
23.  Fernando Monje     SUNRED SEAT             1m58.388s  + 2.514s
24.  Eric Kwong         Look Fong Chevrolet     2m00.605s  + 4.731s
25.  Kelvin Leong       Song Veng Honda         2m01.899s  + 6.025s
26.  Filipe de Souza    China Dragon Chevrolet  2m02.421s  + 6.547s
27.  Kin Veng Ng        China Dragon Chevrolet  2m04.112s  + 8.238s
28.  Alex Liu           Engstler BMW            2m04.589s  + 8.715s

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Shanghai WTCC: WSR's Colin Turkington heads first Shanghai practice
Next article Shanghai WTCC: Menu leads all-Chevrolet front row

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe