Mat’o Homola grabs TCR Europe pole at the Hungaoring

The TCR Europe Qualifying at the Hungaroring was dominated by Hyundai drivers who filled eight of the twelve top spots and locked the two front rows of the grid for tomorrow’s Race 1.
Mat’o Homola drove his Target Competition Hyundai i30 N to win the pole position, beating his teammate Andreas Bäckman; M Racing’s Nelson Panciatici and Target’s Josh Files qualified third and fourth, while Gilles Magnus was the best of the rest in fifth position with the Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS, followed by the Peugeot 308 of Julien Briché.
Another Audi the Team WRT’s car of Santiago Urrutia qualified 10^th and will start from the pole on the reverse grid for Race 2, with the Target Hyundai of Dušan Borković alongside and local hero Dániel Nagy (M1RA Motorsport, Hyundai) third.
TCR Eastern Europe was topped by the Brutal Fish Racing Honda Civic of Martin Ryba in 21^st position overall.
The Q1 part was red-flagged at the beginning when Luca Engstler crashed his M1RA Hyundai at T1. When action resumed, with 16 minutes to go, Panciatici set a fastest lap of 1:53.064 that nobody was able to beat.
By the end of the session Magnus’ Audi (1:53.329) and Briché’s Peugeot (1:53.405) improved and climbed to second and third, demoting the other Hyundai cars of Nagy, Files and Jessica Bäckman. It was an impressive show of the Korean cars that filled eight of the twelve spots for Q2.
Besides Magnus and Briché the other non-Hyundai drivers who made the cut were John Filippi in the Renault Mégane and Urrutia in the second Audi. The best of the Volkswagen drivers was Maxime Potty, 13^th, who was 11 thousandths of a second slower than twelfth-placed Nathan Bihel.
In Q2, Panciatici encored with a provisional fastest lap of 1:53.148, but this was not enough as Homola improved to 1:53.049 and then Andreas Bäckman took second place with a lap of 1:53.068.
Race 1 will start tomorrow at 11:25; live streaming at www.tcr-series.tv.

Qualifying
1. 1:53.049 – Mat’o Homola (Target Competition, Hyundai i30 N)
2. 1:53.068 – Andreas Bäckman (Target Competition, Hyundai i30 N)
3. 1:53.148 – Nelson Panciatici (M Racing, Hyundai i30 N)
4. 1:53.200 – Josh Files (Target Competition, Hyundai i30 N)
5. 1:53.311 – Gilles Magnus (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)