SEAT Sport's Yvan Muller set the fastest time in the official test at Oschersleben on Tuesday and Wednesday. With a lap of 1:35.227 clocked on Wednesday afternoon, the Frenchman managed to beat Robert Huff's fastest time of 1:35.324 from the previous day. Most of the drivers who took part in the test were able to be faster than last year's pole position set by Alain Menu's Chevrolet at 1:36.291.
Huff and team-mate Nicola Larini emerged as second and third fastest behind Muller with a gap of only one tenth of a second behind the leader. BMW Team Germany's men Augusto Farfus and Jörg Müller were classified fourth and fifth respectively, one further tenth behind.
James Thompson continued to develop the new Honda Accord Euro R car built by N.technology and JAS Motorsport. After clocking up an impressive third fastest time on day one, the Briton focused on the race set up. "With only free practice left at Valencia before we race, it was essential that we focused on assessing the car under race conditions," he explained.
On their first appearance alongside their fellow WTCC competitors, Russian Bears Motorsport were also impressive. Their LADA 110 car driven by Viktor Shapovalov completed only 15 laps on Tuesday before being halted due to an engine failure. However, the Russian machine hit the track again on day two and Shapovalov managed to dramatically improve his lap times, reducing the gap to 2.5 seconds, while his Dutch team-mate Jap van Lagen set a fastest lap of 1:36.476, which was only 1.2 seconds off Yvan Muller's fastest time of the day. This was a very encouraging performance in view of LADA's maiden races at Valencia next week.