WTCC: Lada's Catsburg leads Moscow practice

Lada and Honda appear finely poised ahead of World Touring Car Championship qualifying in Russia as Nicky Catsburg and Tiago Monteiro set the fastest times in Saturday's two practice sessions.

Dutchman Catsburg set the fastest time of the morning in his Lada Vesta towards the end of the first practice session, clocking a 1m38.549s lap of the Moscow Raceway circuit to deny Honda a 1-2-3 in the session.

Honda's trio had led for much of the session until Catsburg's late improvement, with Norbert Michelisz instead heading up a 2-3-4 for the team ahead of Rob Huff and Monteiro.

Rain had arrived by the start of the second session and, while Michelisz and a handful of others tried the slick tyres at the start, moist conditions proved to be too much to warrant anything other than wet tyres.

The Honda trio once again spent much of the session trading fastest times, although Catsburg and Lada team-mates Gabriele Tarquini and Hugo Valente all spent time towards the top of the timesheets.

Tarquini was fastest with two minutes of the session remaining, but Monteiro leapfrogged his former team-mate with his penultimate lap, before improving his benchmark after the chequered flag.

The Portuguese's time of 1m55.309s proved enough, with team-mate Michelisz ending the session second fastest, 0.257s down on Monteiro.

Tarquini stayed third, while Huff was fourth ahead of Valente.

All five Citroens were quiet during the two sessions.

The marque has tended to focus its first practice programmes on bedding in tyres previously, but its drivers occupied five of the last six positions in the opening session, with Yvan Muller the best placed in 12th.

The Frenchman was also the fastest Citroen man in second practice in an improved second session, 0.458s behind the returning James Thompson who dragged his Munnich Motorsport Chevrolet Cruze to the sixth-fastest time.

Double champion Jose Maria Lopez was 10th, behind leading Sebastien Loeb Racing independent Citroen driver Mehdi Bennani (eighth) and Zengo Motorsport's Ferenc Ficza.

PRACTICE ONE TIMES

PRACTICE TWO TIMES

Originally on Autosport.com