Shanghai WTCC: Jose Maria Lopez fastest on Friday for Citroen

The Argentinean waited until the final minute of the session before producing a lap of 1m50.396s, to propel him from eighth to first on the timing screens.

Yvan Muller had led throughout the previous 29 minutes of the half-hour session, but ended 0.199s shy of his Citroen team-mate and title rival's effort.

Zengo Motorsport's Norbert Michelisz prevented Citroen from monopolising the top three positions. The Honda racer round took third place ahead of ex-World Rally Championship superstar Sebastien Loeb, and was the final driver to break under the 1m51s mark.

Gabriele Tarquini was the leading factory Honda driver in fifth, while the fourth C-Elysee of local star Ma Qing Hua completed the top six.

Citroen is expected to wrap up the WTCC manufacturers' title at Shanghai this weekend; the French manufacturer enjoys a 270-point margin over Honda and only requires a further six points to achieve its goal. One of Citroen's three regular drivers is also assured of lifting the drivers' crown.

In the wars together at Beijing Goldenport last weekend, the private Proteam Honda of Mehdi Bennani and the factory car of Tiago Monteiro were again in close proximity, ending Friday's test in seventh and eighth.

Campos Racing's Hugo Valente took leading Chevrolet honours ahead of Goldenport feature race winner Tom Chilton.

The second Campos machine of Dusan Borkovic was unable to record a flying lap. The Serbian's car was rebuilt at Shanghai on Thursday following its violent collision with Rene Munnich's similar Cruze at Goldenport.

Borkovic had described the car as being "good as new" but will have to wait until free practice one on Saturday morning before sampling the Shanghai track for the first time this weekend.

Lada's Mikhail Kozlovskiy suffered a brief spin in the first sector, but was able to resume without apparent damage.

Pos  Driver              Team/Car           Time       Gap
 1.  Jose Maria Lopez    Citroen            1m50.396s
 2.  Yvan Muller         Citroen            1m50.595s  +0.199s
 3.  Norbert Michelisz   Zengo Honda        1m50.750s  +0.354s
 4.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen            1m50.901s  +0.505s
 5.  Gabriele Tarquini   Honda              1m51.097s  +0.701s
 6.  Ma Qing Hua         Citroen            1m51.131s  +0.735s
 7.  Mehdi Bennani       Proteam Honda      1m51.354s  +0.958s
 8.  Tiago Monteiro      Honda              1m51.544s  +1.148s
 9.  Hugo Valente        Campos Chevrolet   1m51.978s  +1.582s
10.  Tom Chilton         ROAL Chevrolet     1m52.433s  +2.037s
11.  James Thompson      Lada               1m52.514s  +2.118s
12.  Rob Huff            Lada               1m52.516s  +2.120s
13.  Mikhail Kozlovskiy  Lada               1m52.990s  +2.594s
14.  Gianni Morbidelli   Munnich Chevrolet  1m53.006s  +2.610s
15.  Tom Coronel         ROAL Chevrolet     1m53.329s  +2.933s
16.  Rene Munnich        Munnich Chevrolet  1m56.758s  +6.362s
17.  Franz Engstler      Engstler BMW       1m57.904s  +7.508s*
18.  John Filippi        Campos SEAT        1m58.805s  +8.409s*
19.  Filipe de Souza     Engstler BMW       2m03.545s  +13.149s*
20.  William Lok         Campos SEAT        2m03.601s  +13.205s*
21.  Dusan Borkovic      Campos Chevrolet

* TC2