Van Lagen leads Lada 1-2 in wet Nurburgring practice

Due to the foggy conditions, the session was delayed by 15 minutes, leading to the shortening of the session from the scheduled 60 minutes to 45.

Norbert Michelisz set the first benchmark in the Zengo Motorsport Honda Civic, before Jose Maria Lopez took over in the factory Citroen as the first driver under 11 minutes in the slippery conditions.

With 20 minutes to go, van Lagen then went fastest of all in the Lada Vesta as the conditions slowly improved. The Dutch driver set a time of 10m24.447, and was joined by teammate Huff in second position, before Tiago Monteiro briefly topped the time sheets in the Honda Civic.

Van Lagen then went faster still, with Huff also improving on his final run to make it a Lada 1-2 at the finish, with Tom Chilton setting the fastest time of the independent drivers with third overall.

With Lopez setting only one lap early in the session, the points leader finished down in 14th, three places behind Nurburgring expert Sabine Schmitz in her Chevrolet RML Cruze.

The conditions caught out a number of drivers but all managed to avoid major contact, with Citroen's Ma Qing Hua experiencing a few visits to the gravel trap, as well as Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Gregoire Demoustier and Munnich Motorsport’s Stefano D’Aste.

Sebastien Loeb Racing driver Mehdi Bennani was the only one to make notable contact with the barrier, but the sturdy Citroen C-Elysee was still able to circulate the track with minimal damage.

Practice results:

Neil Hudson / TouringCarTimes