Photo: ETCC Media

Igor Skuz leads Campos 1-2 in first ETCC test in France

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Campos Racing’s Igor Skuz led the way in the first test session at the Paul Ricard circuit in his Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T ahead of team-mate Nikolay Karamyshev, with Liqui Moly Team Engstler’s Franz Engstler in third.

Russian driver Karamyshev was fastest through the bulk of the session, with Skuz improving to go two-tenths faster in the final 15 minutes of the one hour test session in the sister Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T.

Campos Racing are fielding a pair of Chevrolet Cruzes in the ETCC for the Russian and Ukrainian drivers, the cars bought from RML and that were used by Yvan Muller and Pepe Oriola in last year’s World Touring Car Championship.

Franz Engstler, who had also benefitted from 30 minutes of track time in an identical BMW 320 TC in the WTCC test session to the one he’s competing with in the ETCC this weekend, was third fastest, just over a second down on Skuz’s time.

Norbert Kiss was the fastest driver in the TC2 class for normally aspirated Super 2000 cars. The Hungarian was just two-tenths of a second behind Engstler in his Alfa Romeo 156 run by Team Unicorse this weekend.

Mikhail Grachev was fifth fastest overall in the BMW 320 TC of Proteam Racing, with 19-year-old Slovakian Mat’o Homola sixth fastest, also running in the turbocharged TC2T class.

Last year’s S2000 drivers’ champion Petr Fulín was seventh quickest in his BMW 320si, still running in the TC2 category for normally aspirated cars in his Krenek Motorsport BMW, ahead of Dmity Bragin, the fastest of the Single-Make Trophy (SEAT León Supercopa) class cars in eighth.

Samuel Sladecka made sure both the Alfa Romeos were in the top ten, setting the ninth fastest time in his 156, just under three seconds down on Skuz’s benchmark, with Aytac Biter rounding out the top ten in his turbocharged BMW 320 TC.

The fastest of the S1600 class cars was Christian Kranenberg in the Ravenol Team Ford Fiesta in 26th overall, who was just under a second clear of the rival Ford Fiesta of Patrick Wolf.

There will be a second one hour test for the ETCC teams today at 17:30 CET.