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René Münnich takes last gasp pole in Paul Ricard

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René Münnich scored pole position on his European Touring Car Cup debut in Paul Ricard, outpacing Petr Fulín’s SEAT by two-tenths of a second with a final flyer at the end of the session in his Honda Civic TCR.

The 38-year-old jumped straight from his Chevrolet RML Cruze, with which he had just qualified 16th in the World Touring Car Championship race, to the TCN2 class Civic for the 30-minute qualifying session, and followed on from his performance in Free Practice where he’d topped the time sheets to set a time of 1:36.066.

Fulín, in a 2016-spec SEAT León TCR was second fastest, with Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Nagy third in the 2015-spec SEAT León Cup Racer.

Fulín’s team-mate Christjohannes Schrieber was fourth fastest in qualifying ahead of Pfister Racing’s Pierre Humbert, all within half a second.

In Super 1600, reigning champion Nicklas Mackschin claimed pole position, a second clear of Kevin Hilgenhövel’s Peugeot 207, with Ulrike Krafft completing the top three.

Race 1 for the ETCC takes place at 13:35 CET on Sunday, with Race 2 following at 14:50, with the top eight from race one’s result reversed.