Morocco WTCC: Coronel emerges as surprise leader in FP2

The ROAL Motorsport driver in his Chevrolet finished ahead of Honda’s Rob Huff and Citroen’s Jose Maria Lopez.

At the beginning Tiago Monteiro jumped up to the lead followed by Lopez, as the two swapped places until the Honda driver took charge ahead of the Argentinian, with 10 minutes to go.

After a round of stops, the drivers improved on their times as Yvan Muller climbed up to fourth, but the Frenchman was soon demoted by Huff, who claimed the lead ahead of Lopez and teammate Norbert Michelisz.

Lada's Nicky Catsburg also entered the top five, demoting Muller to fifth while Hugo Valente's quick lap was disallowed due to track limits infringements, at Turn 12.

As the session came to an end, Coronel surprisingly set the fastest second sector and took the lead of the session with just seconds to go.

There were no improvement under the chequered flag, leaving the Chevrolet driver in the lead ahead of Huff and Lopez.

Michelisz finished fourth ahead of Monteiro, with Catsburg in sixth. Despite a massive improvement compared to this morning’s 14th position, Muller is still seventh, 0.8s off the pace in his Citroen.

Gabriele Tarquini finished in eighth for Lada, with James Thompson entering the top ten by claiming ninth as home hero Mehdi Bennani completed the top ten.

FP2 results:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time/Gap	Laps
1	Tom Coronel	Chevrolet	1:21.824	14
2	Rob Huff	Honda	+0.252	16
3	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroen	+0.319	14
4	Norbert Michelisz	Honda	+0.400	13
5	Tiago Monteiro	Honda	+0.424	15
6	Nicky Catsburg	Lada	+0.599	15
7	Yvan Muller	Citroen	+0.814	13
8	Gabriele Tarquini	Lada	+0.857	16
9	James Thompson	Chevrolet	+0.883	14
10	Mehdi Bennani	Citroen	+1.042	16
11	Fredrik Ekblom	Volvo	+1.156	15
12	Thed Björk	Volvo	+1.238	14
13	John Filippi	Chevrolet	+1.416	17
14	Hugo Valente	Lada	+1.428	14
15	Tom Chilton	Citroen	+1.523	12
16	Grégoire Demoustier	Citroen	+2.254	16
17	Ferenc Ficza	Honda	+2.476	10

Pietro Casillo / TouringCarTimes