Ma leads practice for home WTCC race

Chinese racer Ma Qing Hua exploited his home advantage to record the fastest time in World Touring Car Championship free practice at Beijing's Goldenport circuit on Saturday.

Moscow winner Ma, returning to the WTCC for the first time since the Spa round in June, set a quickest time of 1m06.127s in an FP2 session red-flagged two minutes prematurely owing to fading light.

Honda's Tiago Monteiro topped the opening free practice session, and briefly held the fastest time at the conclusion of FP2 before being stripped of the lap for a red-flag infringement.

The factory JAS driver was testing in Hungary and Slovakia in September, but Monteiro believes damp track conditions during practice at Goldenport made it difficult to gauge the effectiveness of Honda's latest developments, which include an engine upgrade and 'joker' played for chassis homologation.

"For sure the upgrades haven't hurt us, but it is hard to judge if we have made a step forward, or by how much, because it was really slippery out there," said Monteiro. "Traction was difficult, although perhaps I wasn't suffering as much as some other people."

The low-grip surface and absence of fast corners were favourable for the Lada Granta, now running without long-time sponsor Lukoil branding on the cars as a consequence of the team's 2015 partnership with rival oil company Rosneft.

Lada's Rob Huff ended the afternoon in second position, after teammate James Thompson lost a provisional second when he too was judged to have infringed the red flags.

"Even if it dries out tomorrow, I think the circuit will be good for us," commented Huff. "There are a few corners below the level of the lake here, and apparently whenever it rains a lot you get an overflow, so perhaps that part of the circuit will never really rubber in this weekend."

The morning session was disappointing for the Chevrolet runners, who reported traction problems, but Hungaroring victor Gianni Morbidelli took an encouraging third in FP2, edging out reigning WTCC champion Yvan Muller by 0.032sec.

The outcome of the Goldenport weekend is critical for outside title contender Muller, who trails championship leader and Citroen teammate Jose Maria Lopez by 60 points. Lopez was the early pacesetter in FP2, but slipped down the order behind teammate Sebastien Loeb.

In the morning session Argentinean Lopez was Monteiro's closest challenger, ending FP1 0.170s behind the Honda man's fastest time of 1m06.621s. The damp track contributed to Lopez becoming beached in the gravel at Turn 13 when attempting to topple Monteiro's P1 spot, and the session was abandoned with 16 seconds left on the clocks.

Tom Coronel was later similarly caught out in practice two, and the red flags were required to facilitate the recovery of the ROAL Chevy.

The Beijing track replaced a provisional date for Sonoma on the World Touring Car Championship calendar, as there was a shipping cancellation in the United States. A customs strike in Argentina, which hosted the preceding WTCC round in August, has caused this weekend's meeting to be compressed into two days.

The boat carrying the WTCC containers was delayed and only arrived in China last Sunday.

PRACTICE ONE:

PRACTICE TWO: