Lopez quickest in Marrakech WTCC test

The Citroens all swapped the top spot on the timesheets during the 30-minute practice session, the only track activity today at the Moroccan circuit.

First Sebastien Loeb Racing's Mehdi Bennani shined in front of his home crowd to grab P1, before Lopez put the factory Citroen C-Elysee ahead on his second flying run.

The times kept falling as the dust began to clear, with the WTCC cars only the second series to hit the track so far this weekend.

With just under ten minutes to go, it was four-time champion Muller who put his Citroen on top, with Mehdi Bennani impressing again with a time just under five-hundredths of a second slower.

A yellow flag at Turn 4 spoiled a lot of drivers' runs in the final minutes, but it was cleared up just in time for reigning champion Lopez to put in one final run and be the only driver to set a time in the 1:44s with a time of 1:44.834.

A quick lap from Frenchman Hugo Valente in the Chevrolet RML Cruze put the 22-year-old fourth and best of the rest behind the Citroens.

The Campos Racing driver is competing with a new development engine this weekend, but as a result will incur a ten-place grid penalty.

Ma Qing Hua was fifth fastest in the relatively event-less session, with Ma having a quiet spin early on but suffering no damage in his Citroen.

Tiago Monteiro was the fastest Honda driver in sixth, just over a second off of Lopez's ultimate pace, with the Citroen of Loeb, the ROAL Chevrolet of Tom Coronel, and the two Hondas of Gabriele Tarquini and Norbert Michelisz completing the top ten.

The best placed of the Lada drivers was Rob Huff, who finished the session 12th, while all 18 drivers entered for the weekend taking part in the session, with only the NIKA Racing Honda of Rickard Rydell absent after the Swede withdrew from the race yesterday due to a virus.

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroen	1'44.834		11
2	Yvan Muller	Citroen	1'45.415	0.581	12
3	Mehdi Bennani	Citroen	1'45.461	0.627	13
4	Hugo Valente	Chevrolet	1'45.842	1.008	11
5	Ma Qing Hua	Citroen	1'45.867	1.033	12
6	Tiago Monteiro	Honda	1'45.895	1.061	12
7	Sebastien Loeb	Citroen	1'46.279	1.445	11
8	Tom Coronel	Chevrolet	1'46.471	1.637	12
9	G.Tarquini	Honda	1'46.485	1.651	11
10	N.Michelisz	Honda	1'46.916	2.082	11
11	Tom Chilton	Chevrolet	1'46.966	2.132	9
12	Rob Huff	Lada	1'47.055	2.221	11
13	Dusan Borkovic	Honda	1'47.123	2.289	13
14	Stefano D'Aste	Chevrolet	1'47.346	2.512	13
15	M.Kozlovskiy	Lada	1'49.173	4.339	7
16	John Filippi	Chevrolet	1'49.745	4.911	13
17	James Thompson	Lada	1'49.848	5.014	8
18	G.Demoustier	Chevrolet	1'50.607	5.773	6