
Alain Menu - Photo Credit: fiawtcc.com
Alain Menu carried his pacesetting form from the Friday test session into free practice on Saturday morning in Suzuka.
The first of the two practice sessions took place on a wet track after an earlier rain shower. Rob Huff posted the fastest time for Chevrolet, but his teammate Menu fell just 0.040 seconds shy with his best effort.
Tiago Monteiro went third quickest, preventing a Chevy 1-2-3 and forcing championship leader Yvan Muller to settle for fourth place. Robert Dahlgren was fifth in the Polestar Volvo, ahead of Gabriele Tarquini.
The track was still damp at the start of the second session, though it dried up as the session went on. Menu was 0.365s quicker than Huff, with Muller a further 0.237s behind in third. Fredy Barth was a surprise best non-Chevrolet in fourth, only seven hundredths of a second behind Muller.
His Sunred teammate Monteiro was fifth, with rally star Toshi Arai sixth in his fourth factory Chevrolet. Fellow local driver Hiroki Yoshimoto was a strong seventh in his Sunred, with the BMWs of Mehdi Bennani, Colin Turkington and Franz Engstler completing the top ten.
Free practice 1 times:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
1 | Robert Huff | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 58.657 | 18 | |
2 | Alain Menu | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 58.697 | 0.040 | 22 |
3 | Tiago Monteiro | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 58.918 | 0.261 | 21 |
4 | Yvan Muller | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 59.007 | 0.350 | 22 |
5 | Robert Dahlgren | Polestar | Volvo C30 Drive | 59.284 | 0.627 | 9 |
6 | Gabriele Tarquini | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 59.322 | 0.665 | 21 |
7 | Darryl O'Young | Bamboo | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 59.354 | 0.697 | 19 |
8 | Tom Coronel | ROAL | BMW 320 TC | 59.416 | 0.759 | 17 |
9 | Kristian Poulsen | Engstler | BMW 320 TC | 59.426 | 0.769 | 23 |
10 | Mehdi Bennani | Proteam | BMW 320 TC | 59.507 | 0.850 | 30 |
11 | Colin Turkington | Wiechers | BMW 320 TC | 59.639 | 0.982 | 22 |
12 | Javier Villa | Proteam | BMW 320 TC | 59.685 | 1.028 | 25 |
13 | Michel Nykjaer | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 59.689 | 1.032 | 19 |
14 | Yukinori Taniguchi | Sunred | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 59.774 | 1.117 | 25 |
15 | Norbert Michelisz | Zengo | BMW 320 TC | 59.874 | 1.217 | 24 |
16 | Aleksei Dudukalo | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 59.885 | 1.228 | 23 |
17 | Fredy Barth | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 59.911 | 1.254 | 21 |
18 | Toshihiro Arai | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 59.939 | 1.282 | 15 |
19 | Franz Engstler | Engstler | BMW 320 TC | 1:00.057 | 1.400 | 25 |
20 | Pepe Oriola | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 1:00.123 | 1.466 | 14 |
21 | Hiroki Yoshimoto | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 1:00.580 | 1.923 | 13 |
22 | Charles Ng | Engstler | BMW 320si | 1:00.600 | 1.943 | 9 |
23 | Masaki Kano | KK | BMW 320 TC | 1:00.793 | 2.136 | 17 |
24 | Fabio Fabiani | Proteam | BMW 320si | 1:03.460 | 4.803 | 18 |
Free practice 2 times:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
1 | Alain Menu | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 54.205 | 15 | |
2 | Robert Huff | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 54.570 | 0.365 | 12 |
3 | Yvan Muller | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 54.807 | 0.602 | 16 |
4 | Fredy Barth | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 54.879 | 0.674 | 15 |
5 | Tiago Monteiro | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 54.924 | 0.719 | 16 |
6 | Toshihiro Arai | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 55.073 | 0.868 | 22 |
7 | Hiroki Yoshimoto | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 55.226 | 1.021 | 19 |
8 | Mehdi Bennani | Proteam | BMW 320 TC | 55.277 | 1.072 | 21 |
9 | Colin Turkington | Wiechers | BMW 320 TC | 55.293 | 1.088 | 15 |
10 | Franz Engstler | Engstler | BMW 320 TC | 55.301 | 1.096 | 23 |
11 | Norbert Michelisz | Zengo | BMW 320 TC | 55.303 | 1.098 | 20 |
12 | Javier Villa | Proteam | BMW 320 TC | 55.372 | 1.167 | 18 |
13 | Pepe Oriola | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 55.391 | 1.186 | 19 |
14 | Darryl O'Young | Bamboo | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 55.691 | 1.486 | 11 |
15 | Yukinori Taniguchi | Bamboo | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 55.696 | 1.491 | 22 |
16 | Aleksei Dudukalo | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 57.354 | 3.149 | 17 |
17 | Michel Nykjaer | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 57.747 | 3.542 | 9 |
18 | Kristian Poulsen | Engstler | BMW 320 TC | 57.831 | 3.626 | 15 |
19 | Gabriele Tarquini | Sunred | Sunred SR Leon 1.6T | 58.298 | 4.093 | 13 |
20 | Masaki Kano | KK | BMW 320 TC | 58.332 | 4.127 | 17 |
21 | Tom Coronel | ROAL | BMW 320 TC | 58.437 | 4.232 | 8 |
22 | Robert Dahlgren | Polestar | Volvo C30 Drive | 58.804 | 4.599 | 10 |
23 | Charles Ng | Engstler | BMW 320si | 1:00.353 | 6.148 | 18 |
24 | Fabio Fabiani | Proteam | BMW 320si | 1:02.132 | 7.927 | 13 |