Bamboos MacDowall fastest ahead of Huff
The World Touring Car Championship today took to the track of the Shanghai International Circuit for the first time, as the F1 track hosts the penultimate round of the 2012 season.
In cloudy but dry conditions, the Cruzes took the first two spots in the rankings, with AlexMacDowall performing extremely well and setting the fastest time of the session at the wheelof the Bamboo Engineering car. The Brit preceded the first of the RML cars of Rob Huff.Yvan Muller was 6th fastest, ahead of the other Bamboo car of Darryl OYoung in 8th withAlain Menu in 11th. Colin Turkington in the WSR Cruze finished a very creditable 5th.Today was mainly a first working session, aimed at discovering the 4.6 km variant of the F1track used by the WTCC and starting the work on the set-up of the cars. The Cruzes provedcompetitive and drivers and engineers collected very useful data to further fine-tune allparameters.
Tomorrows qualifying will be key to determining the positions on the grid for Sundays race,which will see the three Chevrolet drivers continue their battle for the Drivers championship.At the moment, Yvan Muller and Rob Huff lead the standings, with an equal number ofpoints -345- and Alain Menu is third, with 307. The title will be decided, whatever theoutcome in Shanghai, at the final round of the season in Macau.Chevrolet mathematically secured its third consecutive Manufacturers title in Suzuka twoweeks ago.
Rob Huff (2nd): Im pleased with the session and with the balance of the car, although wedid not follow the initial work programme. We did not put new tires on at the end of thesession, as we normally do. The track was quite slippery and there was a lot of traffic, buteventually I could do a good lap time. The circuit is fantastic: very interesting from a drivingperspective and incredible facilities, I am really happy to be here.
Yvan Muller (6th): It was a good start of the weekend, and I spent the session doing a fullrace run. I really wanted to check everything in race conditions, and I am happy with theresult. We still have to work on the set-up, but the base from where we start seems OK.Alain Menu (11th): Today there was really very low grip on the track, so there was no pointin putting on new tires or trying to do a lap time. I worked on the set-up and still have someundersteering to correct. I hope the track will get better and faster tomorrow morning. I foundthe circuit not that exciting. Except for the first one, the corners are slower than I thought.
SUZUKA TESTING RESULT1. A MacDowall Chevrolet Cruze 1m56s3042. R Huff Chevrolet Cruze + 0s0423. P Oriola SEAT Len WTCC + 0s0834. T Monteiro Honda Civic S2000 + 0s1355. C. Turkington Chevrolet Cruze + 0s3476. Y Muller Chevrolet Cruze + 0s3498. D OYoung Chevrolet Cruze + 0s48111. A Menu Chevrolet Cruze + 0s884
WTCC DRIVERS STANDINGS AFTER RACE 20 OF 241. Muller (Chevrolet), Huff (Chevrolet), 345; 3. Menu (Chevrolet), 307; 4. Tarquini (SEAT),220; 5. Coronel (BMW), 172;9. MacDowall (Chevrolet), 66;15. Nykjr (Chevrolet), 20; 17. Rydell (Chevrolet), 14
WTCC MANUFACTURERS STANDINGS AFTER RACE 20 OF 241. Chevrolet, 835 points; 2. BMW, 543; 3. SEAT, 532.
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