Target Competition’s Mat’o Homola led an all-Hyundai top six to take the honours in the opening practice session of the TCR Europe season finale at Monza.

The Hyundais made a strong start despite being joint-heaviest cars with the Hondas this weekend as Homola headed M1RA Motorsport racer Luca Engstler by just over a tenth, posting a best time of 1.57.488 to top the session.

Behind Engstler was the remainder of the Target-run Hyundais, with standings leader Josh Files in third position ahead of Andreas Bäckman – who still remains in mathematical contention of the title – but sits 83 points adrift of Files and out of a realistic title bid.

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Dominik Bauman was next ahead of Jessica Bäckman, who sat over six tenths adrift of Homola’s benchmark as the last of the Target Competition machines.

The first non-Hyundai runner was Gilles Magnus in his Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS, albeit some 0.812s off the overall pace.

Making it eight Hyundais in the top ten was Natan Bihel and Luca Filippi, the M Racing and BRC Racing Team runners placing eighth and ninth respectively.

Completing the top ten for Team WRT was Santiago Urrutia, just ahead of fellow Audi runner Sami Taoufik.

Notably, title contender Julien Briché sat 14th in his Peugeot 308 TCR ahead of Guilherme Salas’ Renault Megane RS, while series returnee Stian Paulsen’s CUPRA was 16th.

Second practice for the TCR Europe season finale at Monza is scheduled to get underway at 16:20 CEST [15:20 BST].

Session results