Hugo Valente’s Chevrolet RML car suffered from a high speed crash at Turn 9 in the early stages of the session.
The young French driver escaped the incident unscathed. Valente lost control of his car while he was following Loeb’s Citroën, the Chevrolet swerved to the left and crashed heavily into the barriers head-on, bounced back to the track where it was narrowly avoided by a couple of other cars.
The Spaniard’s Cruze suffered from extensive damage; the session was disrupted by the red flag.
The fastest lap was set by Sébastien Loeb who stopped the clock at 1:22.421 in the final moments. Previously Gianni Morbidelli and José María López had posted provisional fastest laps of 1:22.778 and 1:22.570.
Just before the chequered flag dropped, Yvan Muller completed a Citroën trio on top, setting the third fastest lap of 1:22.778 and demoting Morbidelli to fourth. Gabriele Tarquini (1:22.846) and Tom Coronel (1:22.931) were placed in fifth and sixth, the last drivers to break the 1:23. wall.
Once again Franz Engstler was the fastest in the TC2T class with a lap of 1:26.742.
Qualifying will start at 14:30.