Slovakia WTCC: Honda duo lead practice

The pair spent almost the entire session at the top of the timesheets, with only a brief salvo from the RML Chevrolet of Yvan Muller denying them a clean sweep.

It was Monteiro who began fastest, getting to within two thousandths of a second of Norbert Michelisz's 2012 pole time in the opening nine minutes.

Muller moved ahead at the one-third distance mark, but within one minute Tarquini had usurped him with a 2m12.229s that put him half a second clear of the field.

The time also held until the chequered flag, when Tarquini shaved another 0.015s off to cement his dominance of the weekend's opening session.

Monteiro followed him home, just under four tenths of a second slower.

Third went to the ROAL BMW of Tom Coronel, which - like all the E90s barring that of Franz Engstler - has been given a 20kg weight break for the weekend.

Muller and RML stablemate Tom Chilton were fourth and fifth respectively, albeit both at least half a second down the road from Tarquini.

Defending champion Rob Huff went sixth in his Munnich-run SEAT, narrowly edging the Bamboo Chevrolet of Alex MacDowall and Marrakech race winner Pepe Oriola's Tuenti SEAT.

A trio of BMWs rounded out the top 11, with Freddy Barth - who enjoyed one lurid moment at Turn 3 - heading Darryl O'Young and Mehdi Bennani.

Like BMW, Lada has also been given a 20kg weight break but it did not translate into immediate gains. James Thompson ended the session 18th fastest, four places ahead of Russian team-mate Mikhail Kozlovskiy.


Pos Driver               Car                    Time       Gap       Laps
 1. Gabriele Tarquini    Honda                  2m12.215s             10
 2. Tiago Monteiro       Honda                  2m12.612s  + 0.397s   11
 3. Tom Coronel          ROAL BMW               2m12.693s  + 0.478s   11
 4. Yvan Muller          RML Chevrolet          2m12.757s  + 0.542s   11
 5. Tom Chilton          RML Chevrolet          2m13.024s  + 0.809s   11
 6. Robert Huff          Munnich SEAT           2m13.285s  + 1.070s    9
 7. Alex MacDowall       Bamboo Chevrolet       2m13.412s  + 1.197s   12
 8. Pepe Oriola          Tuenti SEAT            2m13.503s  + 1.288s   10
 9. Fredy Barth          Wiechers BMW           2m13.754s  + 1.539s    9
10. Darryl O'Young       ROAL BMW               2m13.940s  + 1.725s   13
11. Mehdi Bennani        Proteam BMW            2m13.955s  + 1.740s   11
12. Michel Nykjer        NIKA Chevrolet         2m14.009s  + 1.794s   11
13. Norbert Michelisz    Zengo Honda            2m14.072s  + 1.857s    8
14. James Nash           Bamboo Chevrolet       2m14.076s  + 1.861s   12
15. Charles Ng           Engstler BMW           2m14.163s  + 1.948s    8
16. Stefano D'Aste       PB BMW                 2m14.627s  + 2.412s   13
17. Fernando Monje       Campos SEAT            2m14.646s  + 2.431s    9
18. James Thompson       Lada                   2m15.039s  + 2.824s    8
19. Marc Basseng         Munnich SEAT           2m15.637s  + 3.422s   11
20. Tom Boardman         Special Tuning SEAT    2m16.166s  + 3.951s   10
21. Franz Engstler       Engstler BMW           2m16.200s  + 3.985s    6
22. M.Kozlovskiy         Lada                   2m16.290s  + 4.075s   11
23. Rene Munnich         Munnich SEAT           no time                0