In a session where the top three times were all set in the first 15 minutes, it was Muller who led a four-car Audi train at the end of the day’s second hour-long practice, the rookie setting the pace with a 1m31.607s.

Mike Rockenfeller – who wrapped up the 2013 title at Zandvoort 12 months ago – was second fastest with a 1m31.669s, while Edoardo Mortara was third fastest with a 1m31.692s lap, the Italian having also been third fastest in the morning’s first free practice session.

Jamie Green completed the Audi top four in FP2, the Brit one of the only frontrunners to improve late in the session and his 1m31.788s effort coming just four minutes from the end.

Adrien Tambay, Mattias Ekstrom and Timo Scheider completed Audi’s dominance of the top 10 in the second session, claiming seventh, ninth and 10th respectively.

BMW had two drivers in the top 10 in FP2, with Timo Glock fifth and Bruno Spengler eighth, with the next best BMWs being Martin Tomczyk in 12th and FP1 pacesetter Marco Wittmann in 13th.

Christian Vietoris was the best placed Mercedes in sixth, which was unsurprising given that he is the only driver that is running one of Stuttgart’s new-specification C-Coupes, which features a new aero package.

Robert Wickens was the best of those in the older Mercedes cars in 11th.

Vitaly Petrov enjoyed next to no running across the two sessions thanks to a trip into the barriers just six minutes in to FP1.

The crash sparked a 15-minute red flag period and damaged the Russian’s Mercedes sufficiently to keep him on the sidelines for both the remainder of FP1, and the entirety of FP2.