Norbert Kiss puts Alfa back on pole in the TC2 class

Hungarian driver Norbert Kiss made his ETCC debut in style this weekend, putting the ageing Alfa Romeo 156 S2000 on pole position in the TC2 class for normally aspirated Super 2000 specification cars, and outqualifying two of the turbocharged BMWs

Kiss, who last season raced in the FIA European Truck Racing Championship, but has a history in front-wheel drive saloon cars, was quick all weekend and put the ex-N.Technology Alfa Romeo 156 fifth overall on the grid.

“It’s a very good car, I’m very thankful to the team,” said Kiss. “The track is also very good, it’s my first time here, and I really enjoy driving here. I’m (also) very glad that I’m first in my class and was able to beat last year’s champion Petr Fulín.”

Looking ahead to the two races tomorrow, Kiss admits it could be a difficult task to stay ahead of the two TC2 class BMWs of Petr Fulín and Michal Matejovsky. Kiss also starts ahead of two of the turbocharged BMWs, with Mikhail Gracher and Aytac Biter just behind him in sixth and seventh.

“It could be difficult in the race, as obviously the BMWs have some advantage on the long runs, as we have some long corners here which can be problematic for the front-wheel drive cars. So I expect them to be strong in the second half of the race, so I will try to build a gap in the first couple of laps.”

The overall pole position went to Nikolay Karamyshev, who has been close to team-mate Igor Skuz in terms of pace all weekend so far, except for on his final lap in qualifying, when the Russian shot away with a one second margin to comfortably secure pole ahead of his Ukrainian team-mate.

“We tried many things. It’s a new car for us, and on the last run we tried something new which gave us a great result,” said Karamyshev.

“There was also a lot of traffic on the track, so we couldn’t get a clean lap every time, but on our last run everything was perfect.