Tiago Monteiro and Jean-Louis Dauger on pole for qualifying race at Zandvoort
The #13 Boutsen Ginion Racing Honda Civic TCR of Tiago Monteiro and Jean-Louis Dauger will start today’s qualifying race from pole position ahead of the Opel Astra TCR of Pierre-Yves Corthals and Frédéric Caprasse after the combined fan vote and practice fast laps were calculated.
Monteiro, who jointly leads the TCR championship on 120 points with his team-mate from Spa-Francorchamps, Stéphane Lemeret, finished second in the fan vote for this weekend behind the car of Lémeret and the Belgian’s new co-driver Norbert Michelisz.
The TCR Benelux series has revised the qualifying race grid calculation from this weekend however, which now also factors in the best times set during the last 15 minutes of the 45-minute practice session. With the #18 car of Michelisz & Lémeret running into trouble in the practice session, they scored a single point with the 15th fastest time, which when added to their 20 points for winning the fan vote, will see them start seventh on the grid for today’s qualifying race.
Monteiro and his new team-mate Jean-Louis Dauger, competing in the wild card Honda Art Car entry, picked up 19 points in the fan vote, and add another ten after setting the sixth fastest time in the fast lap session.
The DG Sport Opel Astra of Pierre-Yves Corthals and Frédéric Caprasse scored 15 points for being the fastest in the final 15 minutes of practice, combined with 14 points for being seventh in the fan vote, which sees them tie with Monteiro & Dauger on 29 points.
In the event of a tie, the fan vote score takes priority, which hands Monteiro his second consecutive pole position in the TCR Benelux series.
The qualifying race, from which the fastest laps of each driver will determine the grids for Races 1 and 3, gets underway at 14:00 CET.
