Tiago Monteiro and Stéphane Lémeret win qualifying race in Spa

Tiago Monteiro and Stéphane Lémeret have won the qualifying race for the season opening round of the TCR Benelux series at Spa-Francorchamps, but faced an early challenge from DG Sport’s Opel Astra, driven by Pierre-Yves COrthals and Frédéric Caprasse, who led the early phase of the race.

Lémeret started from pole position in the Boutsen Ginion Racing Honda Civic TCR which he’s sharing with Monteiro this weekend, courtesy of the fan vote grid system, but the Belgian fell behind the Opel Astra TCR driven by Corthals at the start, which also set the fastest lap and secured pole position for Race 3 of tomorrow’s four races.

After the mid-race pit stop in which Corthals and Lémeret swapped cars with Caprasse and Monteiro, the Portuguese driver was able to overhaul the Astra and take the lead, going on to win the race with a comfortable margin of 17 seconds.

The Delahaye Racing Team entry of Alexis van de Poele and Romain de Leval finished third in the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, meaning the best-placed of the highly represented SEAT León TCRs in the race was only fourth, being the RACB National Team entry of Sam Dejonghe and Denis Dupont.

Tom Coronel, sharing a SEAT León TCR with Jamie Valdenbalck, finished in tenth, but secured pole position for Race 1 tomorrow, while another high profile entry, the Ferry Monster Autosport-run SEAT of Loriz Hezemans and former BTCC and WTCC racer Vincent Radermecker finished three laps down in 12th.

On Sunday, there are four 20-minute races, with two pairs of races separated by a leading car intervention, and with each driver’s fastest laps before and after the compulsory pit stop setting the grid.

Driver 1 is only listed below.