Photo: Tamara Aller

Nikolay Karamyshev leads Campos 1-2 in Paul Ricard qualifying

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Nikolay Karamyshev has claimed his first overall pole position in the FIA European Touring Car Cup, after a session long battle with Campos Racing team-mate Igor Skuz. The Russian left it the final moments to put a storming lap in, going over one second faster than Skuz to secure pole position.

In the 30 minute qualifying session, Igor Skuz had set the first target with a time of 1:36.364 in his Chevrolet Cruze, with Karamyshev just behind in second position. It looked briefly like the two Chevrolets could be threatened by Franz Engstler’s BMW, who slotted in-between them with a time just under a tenth slower than Skuz, but the two ex-works Chevrolet WTCC cars found more pace as the session continued.

Karamyshev improved his time and took over P1 with a time of 1:35.021, almost a second faster than he had previously, with Skuz immediately responding, setting a time quicker than Karamyshev by just 0.001 seconds. Karamyshev then jumped back ahead, setting another time in the low 1:35s, just two-hundredths faster, and as Skuz went out for another shot at the end of the session, Karamyshev dug deep and found another second within the Cruze, putting pole position at 1:33.964, over a second away from Skuz’s final time.

Franz Engstler completed the top three, over a second and a half down on Karamyshev, with Mat’o Homola just behind in fourth, the two drivers both competing in the BMW 320 TCs this weekend.

Norbert Kiss was the fastest of the TC2 competitors in the normally aspirated Alfa Romeo 156. The Hungarian was three-tenths of a second faster than the turbocharged TC2T-class Proteam BMW of Mikhail Grachev, with last year’s S2000 drivers’ champion Petr Fulín qualifying in seventh overall in the TC2-spec BMW.

Russian driver Dmitry Bragin took pole position in the Single-Make Trophy class on his ETCC debut, eighth overall in the SMP Russian Bears SEAT León Supercopa, while Ulrike Krafft secured pole in the S1600 class, almost two seconds clear of her Ravenol Team team-mate Christian Kranenberg in her Ford Fiesta.

The next session for the ETCC is the warm-up at 09:00 on Sunday, with races one and two taking place back-to back from 10:00 CET.