After Tiago Montiero pulled up with turbocharger failure in Free Practice yesterday, Gabriele Tarquini suffered the same fate in the other Castrol Team Honda car. As some comfort for the team, Monteiro - competing in front of a large home crowd - rewarded the fans by recovering from 17th to ninth.

 

Besides Tarquini, several other drivers failed to finish the race. Norbert Michelisz made contact with the wall on the second lap and pulled up, while a bizarre incident on lap 9 saw the BMW of Franz Engstler make contact with the rear of a marshal’s pickup truck that was on its way to recover Tarquini’s car. Fredy Barth then spun while trying to avoid Engstler’s car and the pickup, which brought out the safery car for two laps.