Teddy Clairet claims pole position at his home event

Teddy Clairet will start TCR Europe’s Race 1 at his home event in Le Castellet from pole position. The French driver in his and Team Clairet Sport Peugeot 308 set the fastest time in this morning’s Qualifying session. Alongside Clairet on the grid will be the Sébastien Loeb Racing Hyundai Elantra N of the reigning champion Mehdi Bennani, while the reversed-grid front row for tomorrow’s Race 2 will consist of the PSS Racing duo of Viktor Davidovski and Franco Girolami in their Honda Civic cars.
In Qualifying 1, it was the three Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS cars of Tom Coronel, Dušan Borković and Nicolas Baert which topped the timesheet after the first flying lap, but the three would soon drop down the order and none of them would make it into Q2. On the following lap, Bennani, Mikel Azcona and Sami Taoufik all went quicker than the three Comtoyou drivers, with Teddy Clairet then going quickest with a lap of 2:13.021.
Jimmy Clairet then went P2 with a time of 2:13.357 with Teddy improving his best time with a 2:12.999. Jack Young (2:13.739) and Niels Langeveld (2:13.864) were P4 and P5 at that point, although Azcona improved his best time on Lap 6 with a 2:13.288 to go second quickest. On the same lap, Bennani went fastest with a 2:12.897 and his young compatriot Sami Taoufik went third with a 2:13.166 with just over a minute of the session remaining. On the final lap of Q1, Felice Jelmini went quickest of all with a time of 2:12.882 while Evgenii Leonov squeezed Tom Coronel out of the top 12 places by just 0.095 second. Coronel’s teammate Borković ended the session in the pits with the Audi’s bonnet up.
In Q2, Teddy Clairet set his best time of 2:12.615 on his first competitive lap, leaving the other eleven drivers scrambling to beat him for the remainder of the ten-minute session. Teddy’s brother Jimmy went P2 with a time of 2:13.174 but was immediately beaten by Jelmini (2:12.973) and then Bennani (2:12.837). Langeveld was P4 (2:13.139) but was soon pipped by his teammate Taoufik with a 2:12.901 to leave the four Hyundai Elantra N cars in second, third, fourth and fifth positions and Jack Young in sixth with a best lap of 2:13.161 in the Brutal Fish Racing Honda Civic Type-R.
Mikel Azcona looked to have gambled on leaving his bid for pole until the very last minute, but the gamble failed. Only eighth fastest behind Jimmy Clairet with a lap time of 2:13.312, the 2018 TCR Europe Champion will start Race 1 from the fourth row on the grid but will be on the second row for Race 2. 
The happiest team in the paddock, however, was Team Clairet Sport. After a disappointing opening weekend in Slovakia three weeks ago, Teddy Clairet will be on pole for the opening race in France while his brother Jimmy will be alongside Azcona for Race 2.
The first race will be streamed live today at www.tcr-series.com; 16:45 local time (CEST).

Circuit Paul Ricard - Qualifying
2:12.615 Teddy Clairet (Clairet Sport, Peugeot 308)
2:12.725 Mehdi Bennani (Sébastien Loeb Racing, Hyundai Elantra N)
2:12.878 Felice Jelmini (Sébastien Loeb Racing, Hyundai Elantra N)
2:12.901 Sami Taoufik (Sébastien Loeb Racing, Hyundai Elantra N)
2:13.139 Niels Langeveld (Sébastien Loeb Racing, Hyundai Elantra N)

Championship points
1. M. Azcona 87 pts; 2. M. Bennani 71; 3. D. Nagy 60 

Picture: TCR Europe