Motegi WTCC: Girolami fastest again in FP2

Argentina’s Nestor Girolami again topped the time sheets in the final practice session in Japan.

He set a last-minute flyer in his Polestar Volvo S60 to drop the Sebastien Loeb Racing-run Citroen of Tom Chilton to second just as the chequered flag was waved.

With the conditions much warmer than FP1, the times had dropped off slightly, but unlike the first session there were improvements throughout the 30 minutes.

Lada’s Nicky Catsburg led the way for the first ten minutes in the Lada Vesta, before the Citroens took over with Yvan Muller briefly going fastest with a time of 1m58.068s before first Jose Maria Lopez and then Chilton went faster, with Chilton almost three-tenths of a second quicker.

Girolami’s time was set on his final run on new tyres, and dropped Chilton by 0.085s with Chilton’s teammate and independents’ title rival Mehdi Bennani third.

John Filippi was an impressive fourth in the Campos Racing Chevrolet Cruze, the fastest of the RML-built cars for the second consecutive session, with Lopez finishing down in fifth.

Muller was next, followed by the fastest of the Hondas, that of Tiago Monteiro, with Nicky Catsburg the quickest of the Lada drivers in eighth.

Thed Bjork in ninth in the second Volvo with the ROAL Chevrolet of Tom Coronel rounded out the top ten.

FP2 results:

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Nestor Girolami	Volvo	10	1'57.646
2	Tom Chilton	Citroën	8	1'57.731	0.085
3	Mehdi Bennani	Citroën	11	1'57.919	0.273
4	John Filippi	Chevrolet	11	1'58.025	0.379
5	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroën	9	1'58.056	0.410
6	Yvan Muller	Citroën	10	1'58.068	0.422
7	Tiago Monteiro	Honda	12	1'58.157	0.511
8	Nicky Catsburg	LADA	11	1'58.202	0.556
9	Thed Björk	Volvo	10	1'58.232	0.586
10	Tom Coronel	Chevrolet	11	1'58.361	0.715
11	Hugo Valente	LADA	9	1'58.578	0.932
12	Gabriele Tarquini	LADA	11	1'58.633	0.987
13	Rob Huff	Honda	9	1'58.637	0.991
14	Norbert Michelisz	Honda	12	1'58.858	1.212
15	Ryo Michigami	Honda	10	1'59.028	1.382
16	James Thompson	Chevrolet	11	1'59.065	1.419
17	Grégoire Demoustier	Citroën	11	1'59.290	1.644
18	Daniel Nagy	Honda	11	1'59.809	2.163
19	Ferenc Ficza	Honda	11	1'59.845	2.199