[2] Lukoil Racing Team's Gabriele Tarquini set the pace in the first free practice session, nearly half a second ahead of the Chevrolet of Yvan Muller.

The session was stopped early on when Tom Chilton suffered a suspension failure, he and his team mate James Nash would form an all Ford back row.

[5] Muller went fastest in Sunday morning's warm-up session ahead of Chevrolet team mates of Huff and Menu.

[6] Muller overtook Tarquini on the outside into turn one to take the lead, while further down the field, Aleksei Dudukalo and Gábor Wéber made contact and ended up in the gravel.

Menu had climbed up to fifth position while the only remaining non-SEAT engined León of Tiago Monteiro spent much of the race defending his seventh place.