SEAT claim top five in first practise

During the first practise session of today at the Brazilian Curitiba circuit SEAT has claimed the top five positions in the time table. Reigning world champion Yvan Muller set the fastest time, but only with a margin of 0.027s over his team mate Rickard Rydell. The fastest BMW was in the hands of Augusto Farfus, who finished the session in sixth. Nicola Larini was again the fastest Chevrolet driver, this time he was only down in tenth.

Tiago Monteiro set the third fastest time, ahead of his team mates Jordi Gené and Gabriele Tarquini. The latter was quickest yesterday during the first test session.

Sergio Hernández, who struggled a bit with his pace yesterday, regained confidence and managed to set eighth place during todays first practise session. He outpaced the fastest independent driver Félix Porteiro by just a couple of hundredths.

Jaap van Lagen was the fastest Lada driver again, but was still over two seconds of the pace from the leaders. His team mate, Kirill Ladygin, however, caused a red flag when he crashed into the barriers at the last corner.

Just before the end of the session, Italian Alessandro Zanardi tried to do the same thing, but as he went of, his car got stuck in the gravel trap.

Kristian Poulsen and Tom Coronel, who had had problems during yesterdays test session, got track time today and finished the session in 21st and 12th respectively. This session it was Andy Priaulx’ turn to skip the session because of car trouble. He completed only two laps due to a brake failure.