Julien Briché on pole for opening race at Monza as Josh Files is only ninth
JSB Compétition’s Julien Briché claimed pole position for the first race of the TCR Europe series season finale at Monza, while points leader Josh Files was only ninth.
Briché took his Peugeot 308TCR to a time of 1:56.308, to beat fellow Peugeot driver Aurélien Comte by four-tenths of a second, with the Team WRT Audi RS 3 LMS of Santiago Urrutia a further four-tenths back in third.
Urrutia’s WRT team-mate Maxime Potty qualified tenth, which means he will start Sunday’s reversed-grid second race from pole, with Files alongside him on the front row.
With five points awarded for pole position, Briché has cut Files’ championship lead to 43 points, with 80 still available in the weekend’s two races.
As displayed during practice on Friday, the majority of drivers tried to find a tow from other cars down the long Monza straights to boost their lap times.
Despite strong practice form, the Hyundais could not find enough pace throughout the two segments of qualifying. Only two of the i30 N TCRs made it through to Q2, with Files qualifying ninth – and second on the grid for Sunday’s reversed-grid race – while his Target Competition team-mate Andreas Bäckman was 12th.
Contrary to their practice pace, the Peugeots were quick out of the block in Q1, with Briché posting a time of 1:57.642, to go 0.167 faster than the Comtoyou Racing Audi of Gilles Magnus.
Guilherme Salas’ Renault Mégane RS TCR then went off at the second Lesmo corner and brought out the red flag shortly after the initial runs, meaning the Target cars languished towards the lower end of the top 20.
Once action resumed, Comte then went to the top of the pile and was soon joined by the Team Clairet Sport Peugeot 308TCR of Teddy Clairet and the VRC Racing Audi of Klim Gavrilov.
Files and Bäckman struggled to make progress, but eventually found their way into Q2, by posting the sixth and 10th quickest times respectively.
Missing out on a place in Q2 was Friday pace-setters Luca Engstler (17th) and Mat’o Homola (18th), while Dominik Baumann was 24th and Jessica Bäckman 28th.
The Peugeots and Audis really came to the fore in Q2, with Briché comfortably setting the fastest time of the weekend to go nearly half a second quicker than Comte.
Urrutia, who yesterday downplayed his chances of getting into the top 10 without a tow, managed to go third quickest, but was nearly a second down on Briché’s best effort.
Behind the Uruguayan, Gavrilov was an excellent fourth, ahead of Clairet and Brutal Fish Racing Honda driver Dan Lloyd.
Gianni Morbidelli qualified a strong seventh in his WestCoast Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, while Magnus was eighth.
John Filippi was unfortunate to miss out on a place in the top ten, as he qualified eleventh in his PCR Sport Cupra TCR.
TCR Europe series debutants Sami Taoufik and Paul Ip Kung Ching both impressed in their Audi RS 3 LMS and Honda Civic Type R FK8 TCR respectively, with Taoufik 16th and Ip 18th.
Race 1 at Mona is scheduled to take place at 16:50 CET.
