Photo: Lynk & Co

Ma Qing Hua tops disrupted opening TCR World Tour practice in Uruguay

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Lynk & Co’s Ma Qing Hua set the quickest time in a heavily disrupted opening FIA TCR World Tour practice session at the El Pinar circuit in Uruguay.

Torrential rain delayed the start by around 20 minutes, while three red flag stoppages occurred during the session, leading to a somewhat frustrating staccato start to the weekend.

Ma’s best time of a 1m30.104 was just seven-hundredths of a second faster than Lynk & Co team-mate Yann Ehrlacher, whose session ended abruptly in the final two minutes as he brought out the third and final red flag.

Home hero Santiago Urrutia set the early pace and ended up third quickest, a tenth of a second off the ultimate pace, while Thed Björk made it a Lynk & Co sweep of the top four, just under half a second off Ma’s best effort.

Fabio Cassagrande’s Honda Civic Type-R FK7 caused the first stoppage of the session after going off into the gravel at turn one, getting beached. Then, as the rain intensified, Norbert Michelisz went off in the first sector in his BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse Elantra TCR.

Both cars were able to be towed out of the gravel and return to the pits under their own steam.

Cassagrande finished 23rd quickest while Michelisz set the sixth-fastest time, 1.184s off the best time.

Either side of these two red flag periods, Lynk & Co were the team to beat, with Urrutia’s initial best effort of a 1m30.225 establishing the early benchmark, some half a second quicker than Ma.

Ma then improved to go a tenth quicker but was nearly matched by Ehrlacher in the closing stages, before the Frenchman’s off with two minutes remaining. Despite this, Ehrlacher ended up second ahead of Urrutia and Björk.

Mikel Azcona finished up as the best placed Hyundai in fifth, just over a second behind Ma’s time, while Michelisz and Néstor Girloami followed.

In eighth was Goat Racing’s Esteban Guerrieri, with Honda team-mate Dušan Borković ninth.

Completing the top 10 was Juan Manuel Casella in his Squadra Martino Racing Honda Civic Type-R.

Next up for TCR World Tour is free practice two which is scheduled to take place later on today at 12:30 local time (17:30 CEST).