Lynk & Co’s Yann Ehrlacher tops TCR World Tour FP2 in Marrakech

Lynk & Co Cyan Racing’s Yann Ehrlacher topped the second FIA TCR World Tour practice session on Marrakech’s Moulay El Hassan street circuit.

The sun had heated up the track surface following the morning’s first practice session, and drivers made considerably more trips to the pits than they had when learning the circuit’s new shortened layout in FP1.

BRC Racing Hyundai N Squadra Corse’s Norbert Michelisz was first to set a lap and was immediately within a second of the FP1 pace. His team-mate Mikel Azcona was next to the top, then almost four minutes in Néstor Girolami became the third Hyundai driver to lead the way with a 51.354 lap.

GOAT Racing’s Esteban Guerrieri lowered the pace by 0.157 seconds a minute later, before team-mate Dušan Borković took over at the top.

Ehrlacher was first to set a sub-51s lap eight-and-a-half minutes in, and his 50.957 lap went unbeaten until the second half of the 30-minute session as the pits became busier than the track.

The driver to unseat Ehrlacher at the top was Guerrieri, who went fastest by 0.683s and therefore beat Michelisz’s 50.802 benchmark from FP1. It took a few more minutes for any others to lap sub-51s, with Azcona and Ehrlacher having knocked Michelisz down to fourth overall in practice’s combined classification with 11 minutes to go.

With many still in the pits, those who were on track did not have to worry about traffic and Volcano Motorsport’s John Filippi reduced Guerrieri’s advantage to 0.305s. Two laps later Filippi set a 50.482, as Michelisz rose to third with a 50.627.

There were only four cars setting laps with six minutes to go, and Borković set a 50.631 to go fourth fastest. As he ended his run others started theirs, and Girolami went quickest by 0.047s.

With just under three minutes left on the clock Ehrlacher then went 0.03s faster than him, and his 50.197 lap would go unbeaten. Santiago Urrutia made it two Lynk & Co 03 FL TCRs in the top four by setting a 50.301, and local racer Sami Taoufik rounded out the top five in his Volcano Motorsport-run Audi RS 3 LMS TCR with a 50.399.

Michesliz was 0.01s slower than Taoufik in sixth, with Filippi, Azcona, GOAT Racing’s Marco Butti and Borković all also within half a second of the pace. The top 13 was covered by 0.9s, with Thed Björk ruing the track’s low-grip surface as he went 13th fastest. His Lynk & Co team-mate Ma Qing Hua was 1.064s back in 14th, and Victor Fernández was 2.506s slower than Ehrlacher in 15th and last place.

Temperatures are expected to be even higher when qualifying begins at 16:00 local time (WEST).