Aku Pellinen takes Imola pole position as Petr Fulín takes championship lead

Aku Pellinen will be on pole position for tomorrow’s Race 1 at Imola, Italy. The Rikli Motorsport driver was as little as 0.027 seconds quicker than new championship leader Petr Fulín, as the Krenek Motorsport driver takes two points for second in qualifying. Title rival Kris Richard finished third, also scoring a point.

Fulín had a lap disallowed due to a track limit infringement at Turn 13, the Variante Alta. The session was briefly stopped midway through, and when it restarted, Fulín steadily improved his times and came very close to Pellinen’s, but not quite enough for pole position.

Igor Stefanovski will line up fourth in his ASK Lein Racing SEAT, with Christjohannes Schreiber sharing the third row with the Honda of Peter Rikli.

Zengo Motorsport’s Norbert Nagy finished seventh ahead of Andreas Pfister. Fabio Mota qualified ninth in the Lema SEAT, ahead of Rikli Motorsport’s Claudio Truffer, who completed the top ten.

Kevin Hilgenhövel took a last-gasp pole position in the S1600 class, with the Peugeot driver just over a tenth quicker than Ravenol Motorsport’s Niklas Mackschin.

The ETCC title showdown will begin tomorrow at 12:35 CET for the first race of the day.