It was a Honda versus CUPRA duel on Friday at Circuit Ricardo Tormo, as teams running Honda Civic Type R FL5s narrowly beat their CUPRA Leon VZ rivals.
Team Argentina led the way in opening practice thanks to Ignacio Montenegro. The Argentinian secured the spot by only 0.131 seconds over Aurelien Comte of Team France and third-place Eric Gene Casanovas from Team Spain. Montenegro’s Honda led a pack of four consecutive CUPRAs that all finished within 0.8 seconds of his time.
In Practice 2, Team Italy and Marco Butti led the way again for Honda. Comte once again finished in the runner-up spot for France, while Jenson Brickley entered the mix with his CUPRA from Team United Kingdom. This time top six finishers were split equally between the two manufacturers.
The 13-car field next takes the track tomorrow morning at 9:55 for qualifying. A qualifying race of 25 minutes plus one lap follows at 15:20 that afternoon.