Coronel beats Pauwels to pole position in Barcelona

Coronel beats Pauwels to pole position in Barcelona

The TCR Europe Qualifying at Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya saw points leader Tom Coronel come out on top, with his Comtoyou Racing teammate and closest rival for the title Kobe Pauwels in second place and the only other driver still in contention for the trophy, John Filippi, in third. The result means Coronel has extended his lead to thirteen points over Pauwels and thirty over Filippi, with a total of eighty points on offer from the final two races of the season.

In Q1, the three Drivers’ Championship contenders were the first to head out of the pit lane, with all three heading back into the pits after an initial lap. As a result, it was the Honda of Ruben Volt which set the first competitive lap time. Volt then improved on his next lap but Coronel, Pauwels, Levente Losonczy and Viktor Andersson then all went quicker than the Estonian. Heading for the halfway point of the twenty-minute leg, Coronel and Pauwels improved with Lewis Brown, Nicola Baldan and Viktor Davidovski completing an all-Comtoyou top five. Filippi was in P9 at that point, while nearly all of the top ten headed into the pits for fresh tyres. With less than four minutes of the session remaining, Andersson went P5 before Pauwels set the quickest time (1:48.820) and Filippi leapt to P4 ahead of Brown with a lap of 1:49.425. 

In the first flying lap of Q2, Coronel was quickest (1:48.968) ahead of Pauwels (1:49.162) and Filippi (1:49.311). Brown was fourth fastest (1:49.398) ahead of Baldan (1:49.970). Despite Andersson moving up into P5 ahead of Baldan in the closing moments of the session (1:49.529), there were no improvements in position among the title contenders after that opening lap and so Coronel and Pauwels will start alongside each other on the front row for Race 1 while the reversed-grid Race 2 will see Volt on pole position. 

The first race of the season is scheduled to start at 17:55 CEST, with live streaming on tcr-series.tv.

Barcelona – Qualifying

1. Tom Coronel (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 1:48.968

2. Kobe Pauwels (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 1:49.162

3. John Filippi (Comtoyou, Audi RS 3 LMS), 1:49.311

Championship points

1. T. Coronel, 406 pts; 2. K. Pauwels, 393; 3. J. Filippi, 376

Picture: TCR Europe