Azcona and Urrutia top the Free Practice sessions at El Pinar

In a sunny morning with a biting wind, the competitors of Kumho TCR World Tour and TCR South America took part in two 30-minute Free Practice sessions.

Practice 1 – Mikel Azcona set the fastest lap of 1:20.663, followed by Santiago Urrutia (1:20.864), Néstor Girolami (1:21.130) and Ma Qing Hua (1:21.247). The first eight positions were filled by TCR World Tour’s competitors, while Juan Manuel Casella was ninth overall and fastest of TCR South America with the time of 1:21.872.

The session was disrupted three times by the red flag: Galid Osman went off at T2 after ten minutes, Fabio Casagrande did the same at T8 eight minutes later; finally Bernardo Llaver caused the third red flag with two minutes left on the clock and the seesion was not resumed.

Practice 2 – The second session ran smoothly with no interruptions, although Damián Fineschi crashed at T11 during the final moments due to a brake failure and was brought to the medical centre for checks. Urrutia was fastest with a lap of 1:20.410, leading a Lynk & Co trio with Thed Björk second (1:20.518) and Ma Qing Hua third (1:20.527); Girolami was the best of the rest in fourth position (1:20.906). The TCR South America field was led by Rafael Suzuki, who was ninth overall (1:21.332).

The Qualifying will start at 16:10 local time (21:10 CEST), with live streaming on tcr-series.tv and YouTube.

Picture: TCR South America/Hernán Capa