Tom Coronel and Benjamin Lessennes dominate qualifying race at Zolder
Boutsen Ginion Honda pair Benjamin Lessennes and Tom Coronel took a comfortable victory in the qualifying long race at Zolder, with Lessennes launching into the lead at the start and handing over the car to Tom Coronel at the pit stops, who extended the lead even further over the two WRT cars.
Matthieu Detry made a slow start from pole position in the Team WRT Volkswagen and dropped to sixth, with Lessennes launching into the lead closely followed by the Peugeot 308 of Aurélien Comte.
Lessennes began to break away as the Peugeot held back the WRT-run SEAT León of Denis Dupont in third. Dupont was able to make his way past the Frenchman on lap three, while Detry continued his recovery from his poor start and was now up to fourth position, passing Edouard Mondron’s SEAT and Frédéric Vervisch’s Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 on lap three.
Detry then overtook Comte’s Peugeot on lap five and was now up to third, with the DG Sport Peugeot driver now defending to keep behind the Delahaye Racing SEAT León TCR of Mondron, with the Audi of Frédéric Vervisch just behind.
Mondron’s challenge soon began to fade, with Comte then able to put some safe distance to the Belgian, while Detry closed in on team-mate Dupont for second position.
Lessennes’s lead was up to eight seconds before the pit stop window opened on lap 15, with Lessennes the first to pit and hand over his car to co-driver Tom Coronel, with Aurélien Comte and Frédéric Vervisch also pitting and handing over to their co-drivers Kevin Abbring and Stefano Comini respectively.
After the pit stop sequence was complete, Coronel was now in the lead from Sam Dejonghe, who had taken over the #7 WRT SEAT from Dupont, with Maxime Potty just behind in the #52 WRT Volkswagen, now at the wheel in place of Detry.
Guillaume Mondron managed to get the jump on Kevin Abbring’s Peugeot in the pit stops, with brother Edouard Mondron the last driver to pit on lap 18 from the lead, with points leader Guillaume now in fourth position.
Things weren’t going well for the TCR International Series regulars, with first Giacomo Altoè pulling into the pits to retire on lap 19 soon after climbing aboard the Delahaye Volkswagen, with Stefano Comini also retiring in the pits just two laps later with damage to his front-right tyre.
Maxime Potty then passed team-mate Sam Dejonghe for second, while Tom Coronel continued to his lead in the Boutsen Ginion Honda Civic TCR, going on to win the race over 20 seconds clear of Potty, with Dejonghe completing the podium, while Kevin Abbring was able to pass Mondron’s SEAT for fourth with two laps to go.
Mondron continues to lead the drivers’ standings, though his lead is now reduced to just 34 points ahead of Benjamin Lessennes, who now moves past the non-scoring Giacomo Altoè and up to second in the championship.
Stefano Comini now drops to joint-sixth with his absent Spa co-driver Sheldon van der Linde, while the Peugeot pair of Aurélien Comte and Kevin Abbring have moved to fourth in the standings, one point ahead.
The fastest laps of each driver will be used to set their grid positions for the sprint races tomorrow, with Lessennes certain to start his first race in the afternoon from pole position after setting the fastest lap of the race of 1:40.537.
The first set of sprint races start at 10:50 CET on Sunday, with the qualifying race ending drivers starting the first pair.
