Mikhail Grachev claims maiden pole in TCR Russia finale

It will be Mikhail Grachev’s LADA Vesta to start from pole position in the first race of TCR Russia final event at Fort Grozny.
The LADA Sport Rosneft driver clocked a 1:20.695 that was only 76 thousandths of a second faster than the 1:20.771 set by Anton Badoev in his Cupra. Grachev’s teammates Kirill Ladygin (1:20.959) and Vladimir Sheshenin (1:21.006) will fill the second row of the grid.
The four title contenders have qualified between the fifth the eight positions in this order: Ivan Lukaschevich (1:21.077), Dmitry Bragin (1:21.101), Klim Gavrilov (1:21.125) and Aleksey Dudukalo (1:21.137).
Bragin is therefore in the perfect position to control the proceedings and his competitors, in fact the TAIF Motorsport driver leads the standings with a comfortable margin of 37 points over Dudukalo, with 53 on offer in the final event. Gavrilov and Lukashevich follow with gaps of 38 and 41 points respectively.
In today’s session 13 of the 18 drivers who have registered for the event were covered by nine tenths. Only Andrej Maslennikov was forced to skip the session due to a gearbox issue.
The first race will start tomorrow at 13:45 local time (12:45 CET); live streaming at www.tcr-series.tv.