In a cool and grey morning at the Shanghai Tianma Circuit, Proteam Racing’s drivers Mehdi Bennani and Javier Villa placed themselves first and third in the 15-minute warm up.
For most of the session Robert Dahlgren and his Volvo C30 car topped the time sheet with a lap 1:05.891, which proved once again that the Swedish duo has a great potential but often fails to put it to good use in qualifying. Since the team adopted the 1.6-litre turbo engine, Dahlgren made the top three in seven warm ups out of eight!
However, in the final moments of today’s session, Bennani and Villa were able to significantly improve their lap times. The Moroccan racer posted the fastest lap of 1:05.850, while his Spanish team mate set a 1:05.905 that placed him in third, just ahead of Yvan Muller (1:06.086).
It was a very close session with the top-four covered by only 0.086 seconds.
Pos. | Driver | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
01 | M. Bennani | BMW 320 TC | 1:05.850 | |
02 | R. Dahlgren | Volvo C30 | 1:05.891 | +0.041s |
03 | J. Villa | BMW 320 TC | 1:05.905 | +0.055s |
04 | Y. Muller | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 1:05.936 | +0.086s |
05 | A. Menu | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 1:06.086 | +0.236s |
06 | T. Coronel | BMW 320 TC | 1:06.090 | +0.240s |
07 | C. Turkington | BMW 320 TC | 1:06.289 | +0.439s |
08 | R. Huff | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 1:06.490 | +0.640s |
09 | K. Poulsen | BMW 320 TC | 1:06.541 | +0.691s |
10 | F. Engstler | BMW 320 TC | 1:06.557 | +0.707s |
11 | N. Michelisz | BMW 320 TC | 1:06.794 | +0.944s |
12 | M. Nykjaer | SR Leon 1.6T | 1:06.827 | +0.977s |
13 | G. Tarquini | SR Leon 1.6T | 1:06.877 | +1.027s |
14 | Y. Taniguchi | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 1:07.057 | +1.207s |
15 | T. Monteiro | SR Leon 1.6T | 1:07.171 | +1.321s |
16 | D. O’Young | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 1:07.245 | +1.395s |
17 | A. Dudukalo | SR Leon 1.6T | 1:07.287 | +1.437s |
18 | P. Oriola | SR Leon 1.6T | 1:08.191 | +2.341s |
19 | C. Ng | BMW 320 TC | 1:08.287 | +2.437s |
20 | F. Barth | SR Leon 1.6T | 1:08.675 | +2.825s |
21 | F. Fabiani | BMW 320 si | 1:09.658 | +3.808s |
22 | P. Ma | BMW 320 si | 1:10.416 | +4.566s |