Campos Racing’s Pepe Oriola led the way in the first practice session at the Wuhan street circuit, which ran for an unprecedented two hours after two red flag stoppages.

The session was delayed for one hour and 20 minutes as the track required repairs after Fabrizio Giovanardi crashed his Team Mulsanne Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR at Turn 10.

Giovanardi’s Alfa experienced heavy damage to its left-hand side, while two barriers were damaged and needed replacing, which held the session up until 14:25 CST, after the session had been red-flagged at 13:05.

When the session resumed, Jean-Karl Vernay quickly improved to go fastest in his Team WRT Audi RS 3 LMS, showing the WRT cars had found new pace after struggling last weekend, before the session was red-flagged again with 12 minutes to go when Boutsen Ginion Racing driver Tom Coronel crashed out, also at Turn 10, slamming into the barriers nose-first in his Honda Civic TCR.

The barrier damage was less severe and the session resumed after Coronel’s car was recovered.

During the final ten minutes, the WRT Audi of Gordon Shedden briefly held the top spot, followed by the rival Comtoyou Racing Audi of Nathanael Berthon, before Oriola improved by over half a second in his Cupra TCR to go fastest of all.

Berthon finished the session second, with Shedden third, with Aurélien Comte fourth in the DG Sport Peugeot. Denis Dupont was fifth, and Jean-Karl Vernay sixth and Fredéric Vervisch seventh, with five of the six Audis making the top ten.

Yann Ehrlacher was the fastest of the Honda drivers in eighth, with Yvan Muller the quickest Hyundai in ninth, with Mat’o Homola completing the top ten.

Free Practice 2 is next and was scheduled for 15:30 CST (09:30 CEST), but has now been moved to 16:25 CST (10:25 CEST).