Photo: TCR South America

Pedro Cardoso beats Leonel Pernia by half a second to Velocittà pole

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Peugeot 308TCR driver Pedro Cardoso was on his own in the TCR South America qualifying session at Velocittà, beating team-mate Leonel Pernia by more than half a second to a PMO Racing 1-2.

Due to a five-place grid penalty from an incident with Galid Osman and Raphael Reis during the previous round, Cardoso will start sixth.

Closest to the Peugeot duo was Rodrigo Baptista of Squadra Martino (Honda), just 43 thousands of a second from second place.

Matias Rossi was fourth fastest for Toyota Team Argentina, seven tenths of a second from pole, while W2 Pro GP Cupra driver Galid Osman made it four different manufacturers in the top five.

Osman’s team-mate Raphael Reis was sixth fastest, 0.871 seconds from pole, while Juan Angel Rosso (Toyota) and Rafael Suzuki (Peugeot) rounded off the top eight.

“It was a very good Saturday. The car is very fast, it is perfect,” said Cardoso.

“I think I was the only one who set a 1:33 time. I’m very happy. Unfortunately I won’t start from pole because I have a penalty from the last race, but it doesn’t really matter much. What we really wanted were the pole position points and we are going to the second race to try to win.”

The first race of the weekend starts at 10:00 local time/15:00 CEST.