Dušan Borković gave B3 Racing Team its second consecutive pole position in the TCR International Series after that won by Mat’o Homola at Estoril two weeks ago. After being stripped of the fastest Q1 lap by a penalty, the Serbian driver posted an impressive 2:33.065 in Q2, beating Pepe Oriola by a bit more than two tenths.
The pair locked the front row on the grid of this afternoon’s Race 1 for SEAT. Aku Pellinen’s Honda Civic qualified in third, the only car able to compete with the Spanish machine for the top positions.
The first Volkswagen Golf – Stefano Comini’s – qualified in eighth, while the other two Honda cars of Kevin Gleason and championship leader Gianni Morbidelli surprisingly did not make the cut for Q2.
An impressive Jimmy Clairet managed to qualify 11th in his Peugeot 308, while local hero Pierre-Yves Corthals posted the tenth fastest lap and won pole position on the top-ten reverse grid for Saturday’s Race 2.
The first race will start this afternoon at 17:30 local time on the distance of 9 laps.
Qualifying 1: Gleason and Morbidelli drop off
Dušan Borković posted the fastest lap of 2:34.306, beating Pepe Oriola’s 2:34.308 by only two thousandths of a second. However, the Serbian was then dropped to second when his best time was deleted for repeatedly trespassing the track limits.
The same infringement was committed by a number other drivers (Stefano Comini, Jean-Karl Vernay, Mikhail Grachev, Aku Pellinen, Jimmy Clairet and Grégory Guilvert) although some of them were able to make the cut anyway.
Borković’s second best time of 2:34.525 granted him the second place ahead of Attila Tassi (2:34.608), Mat’o Homola (2:34.783) and Aku Pellinen (2:34.893).
Vernay dropped from fourth to ninth after his best time was disallowed.
Clairet caused the biggest surprise posting the twelfth best time on his last lap and kicking out Kevin Gleason who had been the fastest in yesterday’s second practice.
To make things worst for WestCoast Racing and Honda, current championship leader Gianni Morbidelli could not make any better than a disappointing 15th place.
The following drivers advanced to Q2: Oriola, Borković, Tassi, Homola, Pellinen, Nash, Comini, Afanasyev, Vernay, Buri, Corthals and Clairet.
Qualifying 2: First pole for Dušan Borković
Dušan Borković clocked an impressive lap of 2:33.065 that was good enough to secure pole position beating Oriola (2:33.306) and Pellinen (2:33.432).
Once again a few drivers had their lap times disallowed for trespassing the track limits, like Homola who dropped from fourth to sixth, Comini who eventually qualified in eighth and Vernay who remained without a valid lap time and ranked 12th.
