Franco Girolami gave the new CUPRA Leon VZ TCR its first pole position in qualifying for the TCR Europe series at Vallelunga, beating fellow Argentine Ignacio Montenegro to the top time.
Practice earlier in the day had been dominated by Aurélien Comte, also in a CUPRA, but with the pace heating up as the day ended in the Italian evening, it was Girolami who was on top.
The Monlau Motorsport driver topped both parts of qualifying, crucially going just over two tenths of a second faster in Q2 to secure his third pole position in the series.
ALM Motorsport’s Montenegro makes it an all-Argentine front row of the grid, being just 0.189 seconds behind on his début in the championship.
Practice pace-setter Comte had to settle for third in his SP Compétition CUPRA, having also been third in the first part of qualifying, which had acted as little more than extra time to set the car up as all 12 participants would progress to Q2 anyway due to the modest grid size.
Comtoyou Racing’s Nicola Baldan put the sole Audi in the field in fourth, the Italian not improving by more than a few thousandths over his Q1 pace, meaning that having been second earlier on, he had to settle for a second row starting position on Saturday.
GOAT Racing’s Rubén Fernández was fifth in his Honda, ahead of the MA:GP Lynk & Co of Viktor Andersson in sixth.
ALM Motorsport’s Levente Losonczy was seventh, ahead of the second Monlau CUPRA on Viktor Davidovski in eighth.
Felipe Fernández and Dušan Borković completed the top ten in their Hondas respectively, the latter having had three consecutive lap times disallowed for exceeding track limits.
The second SP Compétition CUPRA of Giovanni Scamardi was 11th, ahead of Ruben Volt in 12th. The latter could probably have gone quicker, but was also penalised for track limit violations, leaving his only legal time good enough for 12th, ten seconds off the pace.
With Volt’s times disallowed, Borković was promoted up the order to tenth, and thus the Serbian driver will start Sunday’s race two on pole position in the partially reversed-grid race.
Race one is scheduled to take place at 18:05 CEST (17:05 BST) on Saturday.
Q2 results
| POS | NO | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 72 |  |
Franco GIROLAMI | Monlau Motorsport | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 4 | 1:39.397 | – |
| 2 | 23 | |
Ignacio MONTENEGRO | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 4 | 1:39.586 | 0.189 |
| 3 | 7 |  |
Aurélien COMTE | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 4 | 1:39.616 | 0.219 |
| 4 | 8 |  |
Nicola BALDAN | Baldan Group by Comtoyou | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 5 | 1:39.624 | 0.227 |
| 5 | 11 |  |
Rubén FERNÁNDEZ GIL | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 4 | 1:40.033 | 0.636 |
| 6 | 10 |  |
Viktor ANDERSSON | MA:GP | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 5 | 1:40.092 | 0.695 |
| 7 | 64 |  |
Levente LOSONCZY | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 5 | 1:40.173 | 0.776 |
| 8 | 110 |  |
Viktor DAVIDOVSKI | Monlau Motorsport | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 5 | 1:40.302 | 0.905 |
| 9 | 19 | |
Felipe FERNÁNDEZ Gil | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 6 | 1:40.303 | 0.906 |
| 10 | 62 |  |
Dušan BORKOVIĆ | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 6 | 1:40.524 | 1.127 |
| 11 | 34 |  |
Giovanni SCAMARDI | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 5 | 1:40.670 | 1.273 |
| 12 | 27 |  |
Ruben VOLT | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 5 | 1:49.845 | 10.448 |
Q1 results
| POS | NO | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 72 | |
Franco GIROLAMI | Monlau Motorsport | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 9 | 1:39.611 | – |
| 2 | 8 | |
Nicola BALDAN | Baldan Group by Comtoyou | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 7 | 1:39.631 | 0.020 |
| 3 | 7 | |
Aurélien COMTE | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 7 | 1:39.678 | 0.067 |
| 4 | 23 | |
Ignacio MONTENEGRO | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 9 | 1:39.763 | 0.152 |
| 5 | 27 | |
Ruben VOLT | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 8 | 1:39.859 | 0.248 |
| 6 | 62 | |
Dušan BORKOVIĆ | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 8 | 1:39.907 | 0.296 |
| 7 | 19 | |
Felipe FERNÁNDEZ Gil | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 7 | 1:40.143 | 0.532 |
| 8 | 10 | |
Viktor ANDERSSON | MA:GP | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 9 | 1:40.300 | 0.689 |
| 9 | 110 | |
Viktor DAVIDOVSKI | Monlau Motorsport | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 8 | 1:40.482 | 0.871 |
| 10 | 64 | |
Levente LOSONCZY | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 9 | 1:40.509 | 0.898 |
| 11 | 34 | |
Giovanni SCAMARDI | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 9 | 1:41.187 | 1.576 |
| 12 | 11 | |
Rubén FERNÁNDEZ GIL | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 7 | 1:41.958 | 2.347 |
| 13 | 21 | |
Eric GENÉ Casanovas | Monlau Motorsport | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 0 | No time | N/A |