Tom Coronel ekes out points advantage with Barcelona pole

Comtoyou Racing’s Tom Coronel has extended his lead at the top of the TCR Europe drivers’ standings 13 points, thanks to securing pole position for race one at Barcelona later in the day.

Coronel hit the top of the times in Q2 around four minutes into the session and was unbeaten thereafter, his lap of 1 minute 48.968 seconds giving the Audi driver a first outright pole position of the season.

His main title rival Kobe Pauwels, who had topped the earlier Q1 part of the session, was second, just under two tenths behind.

John Filippi ensured that all three title contenders occupied the top three positions, the Corsican putting his Audi on the second row of the grid after being 0.343 seconds from pole, having earlier set the benchmark in the Q2 session.

Lewis Brown improved on his practice performances to make it a Comtoyou 1-2-3-4 at the head of the grid.

Despite being quick in practice, MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson could only manage fifth in qualifying as the best non-Audi driver in the field, and the Swede was also the only other driver within a second of the pace.

Comtoyou’s Nicola Baldan was sixth, ahead of the best Aggressive Team Italia Hyundai of Levente Losonczy in seventh.

The top ten was completed by Comtoyou’s Viktor Davidovski, Volcano Motorsport’s Daniel Tkachenko with a season-best performance and ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt.

Crucially, that gives the latter a chance to repeat his race two victory from last time out, with the Honda driver starting Sunday’s second race from the partial reverse-grid pole, with Tkachenko alongside.

Series returnee Pepe Oriola just missed out on that race two pole and was 11^th fastest, over a tenth slower than Volt, but ahead of RC2 Racing Team team-mate Rubén Fernández, who put his Audi in 12^th.

Race one is scheduled to get underway at 17:55 CEST (16:55 BST).

Q2 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	34		Tom CORONEL	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	1:48.968	–
2	22		Kobe PAUWELS	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	1:49.162	0.194
3	27		John FILIPPI	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	1:49.311	0.343
4	39		Lewis BROWN	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	5	1:49.398	0.430
5	10		Viktor ANDERSSON	MA:GP	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	5	1:49.529	0.561
6	8		Nicola BALDAN	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	5	1:49.970	1.002
7	264		Levente LOSONCZY	Aggressive Team Italia	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	5	1:50.078	1.110
8	11		Viktor DAVIDOVSKI	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	1:50.324	1.356
9	7		Daniel TKACHENKO	Volcano Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	5	1:50.669	1.701
10	127		Ruben VOLT	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	4	1:50.822	1.854
11	74		Pepe ORIOLA	RC2 Racing Team	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	1:50.966	1.998
12	12		Rubén FERNÁNDEZ Gil	RC2 Racing Team	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	1:51.156	2.188

Q1 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	22		Kobe PAUWELS	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	8	1:48.820	–
2	34		Tom CORONEL	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	1:49.184	0.364
3	8		Nicola BALDAN	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	1:49.372	0.552
4	27		John FILIPPI	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	1:49.425	0.605
5	39		Lewis BROWN	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	8	1:49.573	0.753
6	10		Viktor ANDERSSON	MA:GP	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	8	1:49.708	0.888
7	11		Viktor DAVIDOVSKI	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	1:50.255	1.435
8	74		Pepe ORIOLA	RC2 Racing Team	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	1:50.280	1.460
9	127		Ruben VOLT	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	10	1:50.552	1.732
10	264		Levente LOSONCZY	Aggressive Team Italia	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	9	1:50.700	1.880
11	7		Daniel TKACHENKO	Volcano Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	1:50.762	1.942
12	12		Rubén FERNÁNDEZ Gil	RC2 Racing Team	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	1:50.796	1.976
13	293		Mauro GUASTAMACCHIA	Aggressive Team Italia	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	9	1:52.613	3.793
14	33		Horia-Traian CHIRIGUT	Volcano Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	0	No time	N/A