Jimmy Clairet fastest in FP2 as Julien Briché crashes heavily

Jimmy Clairet posted the fastest time in a truncated second practice session at Spa-Francorchamps following an accident for fellow Peugeot driver Julien Briché at Raidillon.

Briché, who topped the morning session in his JSB Compétition 308TCR, went off with ten minutes of the 25-minute session remaining, with officials electing to call an early end to the running soon after.

The Frenchman was unharmed in the accident, but his team reported heavy damage to the front and side of the car.

As a result, the times that were set were largely unrepresentative, although Clairet’s time of 2:m31.0216 kept Peugeot at the top of the tables for the second successive session.

Josh Files was Clairet’s nearest challenger in second, setting a time of 2:31.032 in his Target Competition Hyundai i30 N TCR, just six-thousandths of a second in arrears.

The Cupra of Stian Paulsen was a further two-hundredths back in third, with local driver Gilles Magnus fourth in his Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS.

Clairet’s brother Jimmy was fifth fastest in the second Team Clairet Sport Peugeots, ahead of Dan Lloyd in the Honda Civic Type R FK8 TCR.

Gianni Morbidelli was seventh in his WestCoast Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, just over seven-tenths of a second behind Jimmy Clairet, with French pairing Nelson Panciatici and Aurélien Comte following after.

M1RA driver Luca Engstler rounded out the top ten in his Hyundai i30 N TCR.

Qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps takes place tomorrow morning at 09:30 CEST.