Nestor Girolami heads new pre-event test at Vallelunga
Nestor Girolami posted the quickest time at Vallelunga in the first of the new 60 minute test sessions added to the FIA World Touring Car Cup’s weekend schedule.
The new session has been added at the request of teams seeking additional track time, with Girolami’s Honda emerging as the car to beat in a session that would feature two red flags.
Girolami’s best of 1:14.902s made him the only driver to dip below the 1:15s mark in the session and saw him end up more than half a second clear of the Hyundai of championship leader Mikel Azcona.
Nathanael Berthon made it three different makes inside the top three at the wheel of his Audi, with Norbert Michelisz, Attila Tassi and Esteban Guerreri close behind to round out the top six.
Michelisz was the cause of one of the two stoppages when his Hyundai ground to a halt on a track with a technical problem, with the second being as a result of defending champion Yann Ehrlacher going off into the gravel at the wheel of his Lynk & Co.
That left the Frenchman to prop up the times after a session where none of the Lynk & Co drivers was able to lap within a second of the quickest time – with Ma Qing Hua the best placed in eighth spot.
Dániel Nagy was the only one of the 17 regular drivers not to set a time having been ruled out of action as a result of a hand injury sustained in his clash with Berthon in Vila Real last time out.
