WTCC: Coronel denies Huff in Morocco practice

Tom Coronel set a blistering pace in the second World Touring Car Championship practice session in Morocco to deny Honda's Rob Huff.

Huff's teammate Tiago Monteiro had set the pace in first practice and Honda looked set to top both sessions until Coronel improved on his final tour in FP2.

The Dutchman set the fastest time of the weekend so far with a 1m21.824s lap of the redesigned Circuit Moulay El Hassan street track, beating Huff's benchmark time by a quarter of a second.

Friday testing pacesetter Huff had edged out leading Citroen driver Jose Maria Lopez halfway through the session by 0.067 seconds. Lopez wound up third quickest, with both he and fourth-placed Norbert Michelisz opting not to attempt any late improvements.

Nicky Catsburg was sixth for Lada, with Fredrik Ekblom the top Volvo in 11th.

In a tight opening session, Monteiro led from teammate Michelisz after a late improvement. Monteiro's best time, a 1m22.081s, was just 0.003 seconds faster than Michelisz's, the Hungarian having led his teammate by a similar margin into the final five minutes of the session.

Lopez prevented a Honda 1-2-3 – having also done so during Friday's test session – with the third-fastest time, just 0.003s faster than Huff.

Thed Bjork was the only other driver to get within a second of the pace in fifth in his Volvo S60 Polestar, ahead of Catsburg and his Lada teammate Hugo Valente.

Yvan Muller finished the opening session at the back of a tight midfield pack in the second works Citroen C-Elysee, 1.421s off the pace, although the Frenchman did improve his placing in the second session, recording the seventh-fastest time.

PRACTICE 1 TIMES:

PRACTICE 2 TIMES:

Originally on Autosport.com