Luca Engstler outpaces the field in Qualifying
Guest star Luca Engstler outpaced the TCR China field in the Qualifying session at Ningbo International Speedpark. The German youngster, freshly crowned champion in TCR Asia, drove his Hyundai i30 N car to set the fastest time of 1:50.633 that was even faster than Yvan Muller’s pole position in WTCR. An impressive result, considering that this was his first outing on the Chinese track, as he had even missed yesterday’s practice.
No wonder then, the TCR China regulars were left far behind. The title contenders, Daniel Lloyd and Huang Chu Han qualified in second and third positions with gaps of 1.6 and 1.8 seconds respectively.
Lloyd’s teammate Martin Xie was the fourth fastest ahead of Zhang Zhen Dong in the best of the two MG 6 cars. The third MacPro Racing car of André Couto did no post a valid time and qualified 11th and last.
It was a disappointing result for the Honda team especially considering that Xie, Lloyd and Couto had been 1-2-3 in Q1 and none of them was able to even repeat their times in Q2, as they had their lap times disallowed for track limit infringements.
Race 1 will start at 17:20 local time (11:20 CET); live streaming at www.tcr-series.tv.
Qualifying 1
1. 1:50.633 – Luca Engstler (Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N)
2. 1:52.268 – Daniel Lloyd (MacPro Racing, Honda Civic FK8)
3. 1:52.452 – Huang Chu Han (Team NewFaster, Audi RS 3 LMS)
4. 1:52.533 – Martin Xie (MacPro Racing, Honda Civic FK8)
6. 1:53.625 – Zhang Zhen Dong (XPower Racing, MG 6)
Championship points
1. Huang 99 pts; 2. Lloyd 90; 3. Look 71
