Photo: TCR Media

James Nash bounces back to lead Free Practice 2 in Thailand

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Craft-Bamboo Racing’s James Nash was fastest of all in the second and final practice session at the Buriram International Circuit in the repaired SEAT León TCR, with the car’s repairs only just finished at 6am this morning.

The British driver was just under two-tenths of a second ahead of WestCoast Racing Honda driver Gianni Morbidelli, setting an improvement in the final moments in the car which still shows the scars from his high-speed crash at the end of testing on Friday.

Morbidelli, last year’s pole-sitter, was again quick in the Honda Civic, with the Italian not being outside the top two in any session in which he’s taken part this weekend, while Pepe Oriola in the #74 Craft-Bamboo SEAT was third fastest.

Just behind the leading trio was the best-placed of the Volkswagens, which was again Jean-Karl Vernay in the Leopard Racing entry, with Mikhail Grachev a strong fifth in the WestCoast Racing Honda.

The fastest of the Thai drivers was Kantadhee Kurisi in the Eakie BBR Kaiten Honda Civic TCR, just under half a second from Nash’s time in sixth, with the Thai driver making a mistake on his best run, with Petr Fulín seventh fastest in the Mulsanne Alfa Romeo Giulietta.

Mat’o Homola finished the session eighth fastest and the top-placed B3 Racing SEAT driver, with championship leader Stefano Comini’s Volkswagen ninth and Rafaël Galiana finishing tenth, putting all three of WestCoast Racing’s Hondas in the top ten.

The session was relatively incident free, with spins for the SEATs of Sloth Racing’s Paritat Bulbon and B3 Racing’s Attila Tassi, both at Turn 5, and another for Mat’o Homola at Turn 3 later in the session.

Qualifying is up next at 15:30 local time.