Franco Girolami scores pole position at sodden Salzburgring

Monlau Motorsport’s Franco Girolami secured his second pole position of the season in qualifying for the TCR Europe series at the Salzburgring, beating compatriot Ignacio Montenegro by a tenth of a second.

Girolami and Montenegro had been duelling it out as the fastest drivers in the earlier practice sessions, and it was Girolami who emerged on top in qualifying.

However, the order had been the other way around in the first part of the session, with Montenegro putting his Honda on top of the Q1 times with a lap of 1 minute 32.909 seconds, a mere 0.037 seconds ahead of Girolami.

In the all-important Q2, it was 2022 TCR Europe champion Girolami who put his CUPRA on pole with a time of 1:33.199, meaning reigning TCR South America champion Montenegro had to settle for second in his ALM Motorsport car.

MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson was third quickest in the sole Lynk & Co in the field, the Swede just under three tenths adrift, although he had briefly topped the times early in the Q2 session.

GOAT Racing’s Santiago Concepcion, in only his second TCR event, put his Honda in an impressive fourth, ahead of SP Compétition’s Aurélien Comte in fifth, the CUPRA driver – also Girolami’s closest title rival – 0.358 seconds off pole.

GOAT Racing’s Felipe Fernández Gil was sixth, ahead of fellow Honda racer Levente Losonczy in the ALM Motorsport-prepared Civic.

Rubén Fernández was eighth in the third GOAT car, with the top ten being completed by ALM’s Ruben Volt and SP Compétition’s Giovanni Scamardi, giving the latter pole for the reversed grid second race.

Viktor Davidovski was 11^th, 1.5 seconds off pole, having earlier caused a red flag in Q1 when he knocked a tyre stack onto the circuit.

Comtoyou Racing’s Nicola Baldan continued to struggle for pace, only managing 12^th in both parts of qualifying and only beating Sandro Soubek, who was in a first-generation Audi RS3.

Race one is scheduled to get underway at 09:25 CEST (08:25 BST) on Sunday morning.

Q2 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	72		Franco GIROLAMI	Monlau Motorsport	CUPRA León VZ TCR	6	1:33.199	–
2	23		Ignacio MONTENEGRO	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	6	1:33.302	0.103
3	10		Viktor ANDERSSON	MA:GP	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	5	1:33.481	0.282
4	33		Santiago CONCEPCIÓN	GOAT Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	7	1:33.546	0.347
5	7		Aurélien COMTE	SP Compétition	CUPRA León VZ TCR	6	1:33.557	0.358
6	19		Felipe FERNÁNDEZ Gil	GOAT Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	7	1:33.811	0.612
7	64		Levente LOSONCZY	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	6	1:33.937	0.738
8	11		Rubén FERNÁNDEZ Gil	GOAT Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	6	1:34.132	0.933
9	27		Ruben VOLT	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	6	1:34.197	0.998
10	34		Giovanni SCAMARDI	SP Compétition	CUPRA León VZ TCR	6	1:34.444	1.245
11	110		Viktor DAVIDOVSKI	Monlau Motorsport	CUPRA León VZ TCR	6	1:34.715	1.516
12	8		Nicola BALDAN	Baldan Group by Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	6	1:34.720	1.521

Q1 results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	23		Ignacio MONTENEGRO	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	9	1:32.909	–
2	72		Franco GIROLAMI	Monlau Motorsport	CUPRA León VZ TCR	10	1:32.946	0.037
3	64		Levente LOSONCZY	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	11	1:33.629	0.720
4	33		Santiago CONCEPCIÓN	GOAT Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	7	1:33.633	0.724
5	27		Ruben VOLT	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	10	1:33.654	0.745
6	7		Aurélien COMTE	SP Compétition	CUPRA León VZ TCR	8	1:33.726	0.817
7	110		Viktor DAVIDOVSKI	Monlau Motorsport	CUPRA León VZ TCR	11	1:33.927	1.018
8	10		Viktor ANDERSSON	MA:GP	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	6	1:33.929	1.020
9	19		Felipe FERNÁNDEZ Gil	GOAT Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	5	1:34.217	1.308
10	11		Rubén FERNÁNDEZ Gil	GOAT Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	9	1:34.291	1.382
11	34		Giovanni SCAMARDI	SP Compétition	CUPRA León VZ TCR	10	1:34.478	1.569
12	8		Nicola BALDAN	Baldan Group by Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	1:34.609	1.700
13	42		Sandro SOUBEK	Mair Racing Osttirol	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	11	1:35.639	2.730