Néstor Girolami remains on top in truncated second Macau practice

Néstor Girolami completed a clean-sweep of Thursday’s practice sessions for the FIA TCR World Tour finale as the Argentinian edged out Rob Huff in FP2 on the streets of Macau.

Girolami had posted a 2:48.761 aboard his BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse Elantra in opening practice this morning, and improved to a 2:37.165 in the afternoon session as the track continued to dry following several showers of rain.

Girolami ended up 0.389s clear of Macau specialist Huff, who returned to the FIA TCR World Tour at the previous round in Zhuzhou and remains on board for the season-finale as well.

Huff’s Volcano Motorsport Audi RS 3 LMS TCR was followed on the scoreboard by Marco Butti, who led a strong session for GOAT Racing with all three of the Spanish squad’s cars inside the top six. Butti’s team-mates Dušan Borković and Esteban Guerrieri were fifth and sixth fastest respectively, as the Honda Civic Type R TCR appeared to thrive in the drying conditions.

It might not tell the full story, however, as a host of late-session incidents combined to skew the picture.

With 17 minutes to go, Hwang Doyun caused the first red flag of the weekend as he struck the wall at Paiol. In a separate, but almost simultaneous incident, Borković ran deep over the crest at Moorish Hill, but was able to rejoin unscathed thanks to finding one of the track’s few run-off zones.

As the session got going again with ten minutes remaining, MACPRO Racing team-mates Martin Xie Xin Zhe and Gary Kwok immediately found trouble at Lisboa, triggered by Zhe striking the exit barrier and Kwok then tagging the back of his Honda Civic Type R TCR colleague.

The session ultimately came to a premature end when Martin Cao crashed on the exit of R Bend with just three minutes remaining, damaging his Hyundai Elantra N TCR and bringing out a second red flag.

Consequently, several of the main contenders failed to post representative lap times, with title contenders Thed Björk (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing), Mikel Azcona (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse), Norbert Michelisz (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse) and Yann Ehrlacher (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing) all languishing well down the order, between five and ten seconds off the pace.

Although the track continued to dry rapidly throughout the truncated session, Girolami’s pace-setting time remains roughly ten seconds off last year’s pole position benchmark. With the rest of the weekend expected to bring dry and sunny conditions, it means the 32-car field will potentially head into Friday’s up-coming qualifying session largely blindfolded as the final two grids of the season are determined.

Qualifying is slated to take place at 12:55 local time (05:55 CET) on Friday.