The Japanese manufacturers were not as fast as Citroen on the first lap, but the French cars lost time on their second lap to fall half a second behind, while Lada had a troubled MAC3 to finish a distant third.

The Russian manufacturer went out first, but Gabriele Tarquini struggled from the start. The Italian couldn't keep up with his teammates, and later reported engine issues despite having changed his power unit this morning.

As a result, Honda were easily able to beat Lada's time as Norbert Michelisz led the group with Tiago Monteiro and Rob Huff behind him in the order.

The Honda contingent ended up more than three seconds faster than Lada, with Citroen going last to beat Honda's set time.

Despite a good start for the three Citroens of Jose Maria Lopez, Tom Chilton and Yvan Muller, building an advantage of over two tenths.

But after the second sector, Chilton appeared to struggle for rear-end grip in the lap and ended up slowing down Muller.

Lopez began to pull away from his two marque-mates, and was much quicker than the two, while the time set by Muller as the third car on the road was 0.667s slower than Honda's 3m32.872s.

This was Honda's fifth MAC3 win this season, with Citroen having won three and Lada yet to win one.

Pietro Casillo / TouringCarTimes