Norbert Michelisz claims home pole in ultra-close qualifying at the Hungaroring
Norbert Michelisz has taken Hyundai’s first pole position of the 2019 World Touring Car Cup season in one of the closest qualifying sessions of the championship, outpacing championship leader Esteban Guerrieri’s Honda by eight-thousandths of a second, with Cyan Racing Lynk & Co driver Yann Ehrlacher third, 0.040 behind.
The Hungarian topped the top-five shootout around his home circuit in the BRC Racing Team Hyundai i30 N TCR, to the delight of the partisan home crowd, while team-mate Gabriele Tarquini will start fourth, and Augusto Farfus is well-placed for the reversed grid race.
Yvan Muller was one of the chief casualties in the first part of qualifying, with the Lynk & Co Cyan Racing driver qualifying 15th and missing the Q2 cut-off by three positions – meaning the Frenchman will start both of today’s races from 15th on the grid, between the two Comtoyou Racing Cupras of Aurélien Panis and Tom Coronel.
“I don’t know yet. Honestly I have no idea,” said Muller when asked about the issue. “My lap was correct, OK the balance wasn’t perfect, but it’s never perfect. I have to check the data before I can say anything.”
In Q2, Yann Ehrlacher topped the time sheets with a time of 1:52.309, and it was most drivers first runs that counted towards the final order in that session.
Rob Huff, who’d found more pace in his Sébastien Loeb Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR overnight, was initially sitting in tenth, but with BRC Racing Team’s Augusto Farfus having aborted his first lap, it was clear the Briton needed another run.
All the cars bar PWR Racing’s Daniel Haglöf came out for one final shot, but the only two cars to improve were the BRC Hyundais of Norbert Michelisz and Augusto Farfus, with Michelisz going fourth and making it into the top-five shootout, while Farfus improved to eighth and knocked Huff out of the top ten.
WRT’s Jean-Karl Vernay looked set to improve his time on his final lap, but after Huff made a mistake, WRT and Vernay opted to back out of the lap and settle for tenth, therefore securing the reversed grid pole position. The Frenchman will start just ahead of PWR Racing’s Daniel Haglöf, with Augusto Farfus third in his Hyundai i30 N TCR.
In the top-five shootout, yesterday’s pole-sitter Néstor Girolami was first to go out, but the Argentinian’s lap time was disallowed before he’d even finished after exceeding track limits at Turn 4, relegating him to fifth on the grid for Race 3.
Michelisz’s lap time followed and no one else was able to better the Hungarians time. Michelisz will start Race 3 at 17:00 CEST from pole position, but will first have to fight through Race 2 from tenth, which starts at 15:30 CEST.
