Muller quickest in Donington test

Date published : 15 Jul 2011 - 16:19:17

Yvan Muller set the pace in free practice ahead of this weekend's World Touring Car Championship round at Donington Park. The defending champion continued Chevrolet's dominance of the season with a best time of 1m37.194s during the dying stages, to give himself an advantage of 0.285s over his nearest rival. That rival, surprisingly, was Polestar Volvo driver Robert Dahlgren, whose time of 1m37.553 had him at the top of the standings for over half the session. The Volvo has been helped by a 60kg weight reduction for the Donington round. Alain Menu put the second Chevrolet third fastest, a spot ahead of his championship-leading team-mate Rob Huff, while Tom Coronel was the best of the BMW drivers in fifth in his ROAL-run machine. The SUNRED SEATs of Gabriele Tarquini and Michel Nykjaer were sixth and eighth, sandwiching Javier Villa's Proteam BMW, which was the best-placed of the independent cars. Colin Turkington, who is making a one-off appearance at Donington for the Wiechers-Sport BMW team, was ninth with Pepe Oriola (SUNRED) completing the top 10. SUNRED driver Tiago Monteiro failed to set a lap time while Yukinori Taniguchi had an off at the Old Hairpin in his bamboo-engineering Chevrolet.