Photo: TCR Media

Davit Kajaia scores Alfa Romeo’s first pole in TCR at home

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GE-Force driver Davit Kajaia has scored pole position for the first race of the TCR International Series season in Georgia, outqualifing M1RA Honda driver Attila Tassi by over half a second in a fast-paced qualifying session.

The Georgian left it to the final minutes to produce the best lap of the weekend in his Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR, moving ahead of the Hungarian pair of Attila Tassi and Ferenc Ficza, the two drivers which had dominated practice so far this weekend.

The first of the expected front-runners was Team WRT’s Jean-Karl Vernay, with the Frenchman putting his Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR fourth on the grid.

Roberto Colciago made sure both of Norbert Michelisz’s new race team’s cars were in the top five, setting the fifth fastest time and the last driver within a second of Kajaia’s time.

Stefano Comini left his best performance of the weekend to qualifying, putting the new Comtoyou-run Audi RS 3 LMS sixth on the grid, qualifying ahead of WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli, whose session ended in the gravel trap at Turn 4 after an off late in the second part of qualifying.

Two of the much fancied Craft-Bamboo Racing SEATs followed, with Hugo Valente the best-placed for the team in eighth and Pepe Oriola ninth, while Giacomo Altoè was tenth fastest on his TCR International Series debut for WestCoast Racing and will start the reversed grid second race from pole position.

Last year’s championship runner-up James Nash just missed out on the top ten and will start from 11th for both races, just ahead of Mat’o Homola, the best-placed of the two Opels.

The first race is scheduled for 13:35 GET (11:35 CET) on Sunday.