Langeveld leads an Audi 1-2-3 in Austrian Qualifying
Niels Langeveld claimed an impressive pole position at the Red Bull Ring for TCR Germany’s third race meeting. The Dutch driver set the fastest lap in both, Q1 and Q2 at the wheel of his Racing One Audi RS3 LMS. It was a great result for Audi, as Antti Buri of LMS Racing and Max Hesse of PROSport Performance qualified second and third.
Mike Halder was the best of the rest in the Fugel Motorsport Honda Civic, ahead of the HP Racing International Opel Astra of the current championship leader Harald Proczyk.
Nine different drivers took turns on top of the time sheet during a thrilling Q1, as lap times dropped down from the 1:39.177 set by Luca Engstler in the early stages to the 1:37.711 posted by Langeveld a few seconds before the chequered flag was waved.
Immediately afterwards, Buri posted the second fastest lap of 1:37.819, demoting Luke Wankmüller (1:37.820) to third, Sandro Kaibach (1:37.932) to fourth and Proczyk (1:37.957) to fifth. Benjamin Leuchter (1:37.970) and Halder (1:37.988) were the only other drivers capable of breaking the 1:38 wall.
Michelle Halder claimed the 12th position and the last spot for Q2 in the dying moments, kicking Florian Thoma down to 13th by seven hundredths.
Competition was so close that the twenty fastest drivers were covered by the same second and cars of seven different brands qualified for Q2, including the Peugeot 308 of Lukas Niedertscheider in ninth.
This part of the session was disrupted once by the red flag with 13 minutes left on the clock, when Niko Kankkunen’s Golf stopped on the track with a broken suspension.
In Q2, Buri took an early lead with a lap of 1:37.800, but Langeveld posted an impressive 1:37.382 that was out of reach for the rest of the field. Later on the Dutchman was even able to clock the second fastest lap of the day of 1:37.499. Buri improved to 1:37.505 and maintained the second position, while Hesse completed an Audi 1-2-3 with the third fastest lap of 1:37.551, demoting Halder (1:37.593) to fourth.
Hesse’s teammate Kaibach qualified tenth and will start on pole for Race 2, with Engstler alongside him.
Race 1 will start Saturday at 11:55 (live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv
