Jorg Muller went fastest in the morning practice session for the opening round of the FIA World Touring Car Championship at Curitiba in Brazil, run on a track that still had some puddles after a rainy night.

With a time of 1.24.566 the German driver popped his Schnitzer BMW into the top spot in the final moments of the session, ahead of Chevrolet star Alain Menu with a time of 1.24.893, and test pace-setter Augusto Farfus, who was 0.337 behind the leader.

Schnitzer and Chevrolet dominated the practice session this morning, taking all top five positions.

Britain's Rob Huff and his team-mates Menu and Nicola Larini all enjoyed periods on the top spot for Chevrolet, and it looked like Menu would end the session on top. However, Muller's time came out of nowhere in the final seconds.

After yesterday's strong start from Farfus, he had to settle with third place, and was not able to set a fastest time throughout the session.

Yvan Muller and Rickard Rydell had good sessions to take up 6th and 7th positions respectively, but reigning World Champion Andy Priaulx could only finish 8th this morning.

The session was extremely close with 14 drivers covered by nine tenths of a second.

There were a few tricky moments: Alex Zanardi spun at turn 3, hit the tyre wall with the rear of the car and came back to the pits for quick repairs. Also following yesterday's spills, Ibrahim Okyay ran wide twice this session, at turns 1 and 6.

Pierre-Yves Corthals headed the Independents' class in his Exagon Engineering SEAT with a time of 1.25.982, which put his in 15th position overall, ahead of Sergio Hernández in 16th.

Eurosport