Andersen beats Engstler to pole for TCR Germany opening round

Martin Andersen, driving a Team Engstler Hyundai i30 N, will start the opening race of the 2021 TCR Germany season at Oschersleben from pole position with his teammate Luca Engstler alongside him on the front row of the grid after a dramatic finale to the Qualifying session. Behind the pair will be the Honda ADAC Sachsen Honda Civic Type-R cars of brothers Dominik and Marcel Fugel.
First to set a competitive lap time during the twenty-minute session was the Volkswagen Golf GTI of René Kircher, who recorded a time of 1:32.241. The CUPRA Leon Competición of Eric Scalvini was second quickest at that stage with a 1:33.114 but all eyes were on the Team Engstler cars after they’d dominated both Free Practice sessions the previous day.
Sure enough, Engstler went quickest on his first flying lap (1:30.876) while despite the fact that Kircher improved his time with a lap of 1:31.885, it was soon an all-Hyundai top three with Nico Gruber recording a 1:31.584 to go P2 and Andersen third fastest with a 1:31.633. Dominik Fugel then went fourth quickest (1:31.647) and then improved his time on the next lap to split the Hyundai cars with a 1:31.482 to go P2 with around nine minutes of the session remaining and the Team Engstler cars were in the pits getting fresh tyres.
By now, Kircher had dropped to fifth, Jonas Karklys was sixth (1:31.727) and Marcel Fugel was seventh with a best lap of 1:31.898. With around four minutes remaining, Karklys improved to move up to P4 with a time of 1:31.584 while Andersen went fastest with a 1:30.625. With Engstler set to make one last flying lap, the two Honda Civic cars of Dominik (1:31.298) and Marcel Fugel (1:31.372) had both improved and were now third and fourth respectively.
It looked as though Engstler had saved his best lap until the final moments of the session. The young German driver set his best Sector 1 time, followed by the best Sector 2 time of all and so it seemed as though he would snatch pole position from his teammate. In the end, however, he would have to settle for second on the grid alongside Andersen, with the two Honda cars on Row 2. Behind those four, Gruber was fifth, Karklys sixth and Kircher seventh. Several drivers, including Gruber and Scalvini, had laps cancelled for track limit infringements.
Race 1 at Oschersleben is scheduled to start at 12.40 CEST and will be streamed live at www.tcr-series.com.

Oschersleben - Qualifying 1
1:30.625 Martin Andersen (Hyundai Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N)
1:30.876 Luca Engstler (Hyundai Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N)
1:31.298 Dominik Fugel (Honda ADAC Sachsen, Honda Civic Type-R)
1:31.372 Marcel Fugel (Honda ADAC Sachsen, Honda Civic Type-R)  
1:31.584 Nico Gruber (Hyundai Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N)

Championship points
1. M. Andersen 10 pts; 2. L. Engstler 8; 3. D. Fugel 6 

Picture: ADAC Motorsport/Gruppe C Photography