Citroën’s six-months of preparation for its first season in the WTCC resulted in a superior pace during the championship’s official test at Valencia.
Sébastien Loeb and his C-Elysée car set the pace yesterday on the Ricardo Tormo circuit, well ahead of the two factory Honda Civic cars of Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro.
The test was also the first occasion to see the brand new Chevrolet RML Cruze in action. Tom Chilton and Hugo Valente took the wheel of the cars run by ROAL Motorsport and Campos Racing respectively.
Despite an early problem with the mounting of the rear wing, that was soon solved by the teams with the help of the RML technicians, the Cruze impressed for speed and consistency considered that this was its very first test after last week’s shakedown.
It is worth noticing that the Citroën and Monteiro’s Honda were the first race cars built by the teams for the season. While Tarquini was still driving the Civic test car.
Yesterday Campos Racing young new comer John Filippi took also part in the test at the wheel of the TC2 SEAT León, while Citroën’s Ma Qing Hua tested on Thursday before handing the car to Loeb.