Mehdi Bennani made the most of ever-drying conditions to take pole position for the opening race of the TCR Europe series at Spa-Francorchamps.
Bennani had initially gone fastest at the beginning of the second part of qualifying before being beaten by several drivers later in the session, before the Moroccan driver responded with a 2 minute 42.275 time to take his second pole position of the season.
In one of first of the late laps to be completed, it looked as if Dan Lloyd had snatched the leading position from Sami Taoufik, but he’d end up in fifth place for the beginning of race one after a late flurry of action.
Lining up alongside second in the championship Bennani on the front row for race one is Tom Coronel. The Dutchman managed a time 0.214 seconds quicker than Target Compeititon’s John Filippi on his TCR Europe return in the Boutsen Ginlon Racing Honda.
Andreas Bäckman was the final of the drivers to set a late lap time and after originally being set to start race one alongside sister Jessica, he managed to move up to fourth fastest for the opening race of the weekend.
With the afore mentioned Lloyd in fifth, sixth in the session was Taoufik, but the ComToYou Racing driver will start race one from the back of the grid after being forced to change the engine of the Audi RS 3 LMS following the second free practice session.
Seventh in qualifying went to another of the Target Competition Hyundai’s in the form of Jose Mauel Sepag who’s time was just 0.023 seconds faster than championship leader Mike Halder.
Pepe Oriola in the second of the Brutal Fish Racing Team Hondas, Mat’o Homola, Daniel Nagy and Jessica Bäckman completed the top 12.
It wasn’t a good session for Belgian driver Nicolas Baert however.
The championship front runner was only 13th fastest in the opening part of qualifying and will have work to do if he is to continue his title push with teammate Bennani, Halder and Lloyd all starting much higher up the grid this weekend.
Q1, which had also seen Bennani top the timesheets, was somewhat of a disaster for the Peugeot teams.
Not one of their drivers made it through to Q2, with the highest placed finisher being Teddy Clairet, who took 15th behind fastest in FP2 Mikel Ascona.
Nicola Balden, who this weekend is driving the CUPRA Leon Competición in its first appearance in TCR Europe, finished qualifying down in 16th after he’d shown fine pace in both free practice sessions.
Julien Briche, Jimmy Clairet, Marin Ryba, Michelle Halder, Evgenii Leonov and Stephane Ventaja completed the leaderboard ahead of the opening race of the weekend.
Race one in Belgium is scheduled to take place at 16:50 CEST (15:50 BST).
Q2 results
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 250 | Mehdi BENNANI |  |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 4 | 2:42.275 | 0.000 |
| 2 | 31 | Tom CORONEL |  |
Boutsen Ginion Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 3 | 2:42.512 | 0.237 |
| 3 | 27 | John FILIPPI |  |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 3 | 2:42.726 | 0.451 |
| 4 | 19 | Andreas BÄCKMAN |  |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 3 | 2:42.855 | 0.580 |
| 5 | 123 | Daniel LLOYD |  |
Brutal Fish Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 3 | 2:42.904 | 0.629 |
| 6 | 25 | Sami TAOUFIK | |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 4 | 2:43.070 | 0.795 |
| 7 | 33 | José Manuel SAPAG |  |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 3 | 2:43.093 | 0.818 |
| 8 | 7 | Mike HALDER |  |
Profi Car Team Halder | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 3 | 2:43.116 | 0.841 |
| 9 | 74 | Pepe ORIOLA |  |
Brutal Fish Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 3 | 2:43.279 | 1.004 |
| 10 | 70 | Mat’o HOMOLA |  |
BRC Racing Team | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 3 | 2:44.284 | 2.009 |
| 11 | 99 | Dániel NAGY |  |
BRC Racing Team | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 3 | 2:44.760 | 2.485 |
| 12 | 26 | Jessica BÄCKMAN | |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 4 | 2:45.400 | 3.125 |
Q1 results
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 250 | Mehdi BENNANI | |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 6 | 2:45.155 | 0.000 |
| 2 | 27 | John FILIPPI | |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 7 | 2:45.521 | 0.366 |
| 3 | 123 | Daniel LLOYD | |
Brutal Fish Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 7 | 2:45.919 | 0.764 |
| 4 | 7 | Mike HALDER | |
Profi Car Team Halder | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 7 | 2:45.973 | 0.818 |
| 5 | 25 | Sami TAOUFIK | |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 7 | 2:46.104 | 0.949 |
| 6 | 74 | Pepe ORIOLA | |
Brutal Fish Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 7 | 2:46.385 | 1.230 |
| 7 | 31 | Tom CORONEL | |
Boutsen Ginion Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 7 | 2:46.771 | 1.616 |
| 8 | 19 | Andreas BÄCKMAN | |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 7 | 2:46.957 | 1.802 |
| 9 | 99 | Dániel NAGY | |
BRC Racing Team | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 6 | 2:46.971 | 1.816 |
| 10 | 33 | José Manuel SAPAG | |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 7 | 2:47.286 | 2.131 |
| 11 | 26 | Jessica BÄCKMAN | |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 7 | 2:47.836 | 2.681 |
| 12 | 70 | Mat’o HOMOLA | |
BRC Racing Team | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 7 | 2:48.229 | 3.074 |
| 13 | 8 | Nicolas BAERT |  |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 7 | 2:48.541 | 3.386 |
| 14 | 96 | Mikel AZCONA | |
Volcano Motorsport | CUPRA TCR | 7 | 2:49.295 | 4.140 |
| 15 | 20 | Teddy CLAIRET | |
Team Clairet Sport | Peugeot 308 TCR | 6 | 2:49.356 | 4.201 |
| 16 | 18 | Nicola BALDAN |  |
Elite Racing | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 5 | 2:49.868 | 4.713 |
| 17 | 24 | Julien BRICHÉ | |
JSB Compétition | Peugeot 308 TCR | 6 | 2:49.985 | 4.830 |
| 18 | 21 | Jimmy CLAIRET | |
Team Clairet Sport | Peugeot 308 TCR | 6 | 2:50.041 | 4.886 |
| 19 | 17 | Martin RYBA | |
Brutal Fish Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 7 | 2:51.459 | 6.304 |
| 20 | 53 | Michelle HALDER | |
Profi Car Team Halder | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 7 | 2:54.742 | 9.587 |
| 21 | 16 | Evgenii LEONOV |  |
Volcano Motorsport | CUPRA TCR | 7 | 2:55.891 | 10.736 |
| 22 | 81 | Stéphane VENTAJA | |
Team Clairet Sport | Peugeot 308 TCR | 7 | 2:58.395 | 13.240 |