Giacome Altoè and Guillaume Mondron win the QLR at Zandvoort

Giacome Altoè and Guillaume Mondron have won the qualifying long race at Zandvoort, with Altoè taking the lead during his stint from the early race leading Peugeot 308 Racing Cup car of Kevin Abbring.

The race was a disaster for the Boutsen Ginion Honda team, with the #1 car of Aurélien Panis and Stéphane Lémeret failing to make the start, while Tom Coronel was straight into the pits with a problem from third on the grid in the #2 Honda.

The Peugeot 308 of Aurélien Comte blasted into the lead at the start, followed by Guillaume Mondron, joined by TCR International Series regular Giacomo Altoè in the car this weekend, with Pepe Oriola initially running in third in the Ferry Monster SEAT.

Coronel had rejoined the race and was catching up to the top ten, before there was further trouble for the Dutchman after he developed a front-left puncture.

Oriola lost third place after an incident with Maxime Potty, with the Team WRT Volkswagen briefly up to third, but seconds later Jaap van Lagen made a lunge at Tarzan and snatched the position from him in the Certainty Racing Audi RS 3 LMS.

The pit window opened on lap 14, with WRT’s Sam Dejonghe, Ferry Monster’s Pepe Oriola and Bas Koeten Audi driver Paul Sieljes the first to make a driver change.

The DG Sport Peugeot squad kept Comte out for as long as they could, with the 308 putting with just 25 minutes remaining on lap 20, rejoining in second with Kevin Abbring now aboard the car.

The Delahaye Volkswagen of Altoè was now in the lead after the stops were complete ahead of Abbring, with Simon Reicher now running in third in the Audi RS 3, after taking over the car from van Lagen.

With two laps to go, Danny Kroes, now having taken over from Oriola in the Ferry Monster SEAT, put on a long pass on Denis Dupont’s WRT SEAT, starting the move at Tarzan and completing it at Gerlach. A lap later, Dupont was now slowing even further, suffering a front-left puncture and would drop to eighth.

Guillaume Mondron and Giacomo Altoe would win the race 15 seconds clear of the Peugeot of Aurélien Comte and Kevin Abbring, with Jaap van Lagen and Simon Reicher putting their Audi on the final step of the podium on their debut.

Guillaume Mondron now moves to a clear second place in the standings, with older brother Edouard and his Spa co-driver not racing this weekend, now 11 points behind current championship leaders Stefano Comini and Sheldon van der Linde, who both were one-off drivers at the season opener last month.

The fastest laps of the qualifying race will be compiled to set two of the grids for four of tomorrow’s 20-minute sprint races.