Yvan Muller leads RML 1-2 in FP2 at Marrakech

The RML Chevrolet team were first and second in the final practice session in Morocco. Yvan Muller led team-mate Tom Chilton by under a tenth of a second, with bamboo-engineering’s Alex MacDowall third fastest.

As in the first practice session, the times at were swapped primarily between the Chevrolets and the Castrol Hondas.

Tom Chilton, Yvan Muller, James Nash and Gabriele Tarquini all took turns at holding the top spot, but Yvan Muller was able to break into the 1:44s and set the fastest time of the day near the end of the session, with team-mate Tom Chilton following with a time just 0.059 seconds behind in the sister Chevrolet Cruze.

Tiago Monteiro wound up the fastest of the Castrol Honda drivers in fourth, with team-mate Gabriele Tarquini fifth.

There was trouble in the pits for Norbert Michelisz’s car, which suffered with a broken exhaust and subsequently a small fire broke out. The Zengo Motorsport Honda was therefore only able set five laps in the session and ended up 23rd and last on the time sheets.

Other drivers to set a limited amount of laps included Münnich Motorsport’s Rob Huff, who had suffered with an oil leak in the first session, and the repaired Special Tuning Racing SEAT of Tom Boardman, which had broken its suspension in FP1. The two drivers ended up 16th and 21st respectively.

With the third overall time, Alex MacDowall was the fastest of the Yokohama Independents’ Trophy drivers, whilst Pepe Oriola’s time of 1:46.023 was the fastest of all the SEAT drivers in eighth.

James Thompson was again the best placed Lada in ninth, with new team-mate Mikhail Koslovskiy in 19th, whilst Tom Coronel was also the fastest BMW for the second consecutive session in tenth, despite a near-miss with Mehdi Bennani’s BMW in the final hairpin halfway into the session.

Qualifying is next and will take place at the revised time of 15:30 WET.