Oriola, Morbidelli reign

Manama : Spain’s Pepe Oriola and Italian Gianni Morbidelli came in with the best times in the first and second practice sessions yesterday of the opening round of the TCR International Series for Touring Cars as a support to the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir.

In the first session, Oriola driving a SEAT Leon TCR completed eight laps in a time of two minutes 13.069 and was 0.413 seconds ahead of second placed Morbidelli driving a Honda Civic TCR with Aku Pellinen (Fin, Honda Civc TCR, +0.755 seconds) in third.

Fourth place went to Dusan Borkovic of Serbia (+1.032) driving a SEAT Leon TCR, with joint fifth going to Mat’o Homolo of Slovakia (+1.355) in a SEAT Leon TCR and  Sergey Afanasyev (Rus, SEAT Leon TCR, +1.355). Seventh and eighth places went to Davit Kajaia (Geo, Volkswagon Golf Gti TCR, +1.533) and James Nash (Gbr, SEAT Leon TCR, +1.882).

Bahrain’s Salman bin Isa bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa (SEAT Leon Cup Racer, +6.765) came in 17th and Hussain Karimi (SEAT Leon Cup Racer, +11.269) 18th out of the 19-strong field.

In the second session, Morbidelli finished 7 laps with a best time of two minutes 13.347 seconds, followed in second by Oriola (+0.424), with third going to Jean-Karl Verney (Volkswagen Golf Gti TCR, +0.437). Fourth to sixth places went to Nash (+0.936), Kevin Gleeson (US, Honda Civic TCR, +0.979) and Pellinen, (+1.224) respectively.

Borkovic (+1.274) finished seventh and defending champion Stefano Comini from Switzerland driving a Volkswagon Golf Gti TCR (+1.560) eighth.

Bahrain’s Shaikh Salman (+5.342) again was 17th and Karimi (+10.162) 19th. After the Bahrain leg, the series in its second edition then moves to Portugal followed by Belgium, Italy, Austria, Germany, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and concludes in Macau.