Thed Björk sails to second straight pole at the Nordschleife
Thed Björk has taken another pole position at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, fighting off challenges from Comtoyou Racing’s Frédéric Vervisch and BRC’s Norbert Michelisz to set pole by over a second.
Björk’s lap came at the end of the 40-minute session in response to a challenge from Norbert Michelisz, who had responded to Björk’s early benchmark and taken pole away from the reigning WTCC champion.
Björk went out and set a time of 8:55.085, with which Swede has bettered the TCR lap record he set yesterday in his Hyundai i30 N TCR.
The Swede’s closest challenge came from an unlikely quarter, with Audi Sport Comtoyou Racing driver Frédéric Vervisch, who’s on double-duty this weekend competing in the Nürburgring 24 hours, going second fastest in the Audi RS 3 LMS, splitting the Hyundais, with Norbert Michelisz dropped to third, and yesterday’s race winner Yvan Muller qualifying in fourth.
Yann Ehrlacher was the best of the Hondas in fifth in his Münnich Motorsport entry, outqualifying the Boutsen Ginion Honda of Benjamin Lessennes.
Rob Huff qualified seventh in his Sébastien Loeb Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, with Esteban Guerrieri eighth in the second-best of the Münnich Hondas.
René Rast was ninth in the Team WRT Audi RS 3 LMS, with Campos Cupra driver Pepe Oriola tenth, with the Spaniard securing pole for the reversed grid race.
Jean-Karl Vernay was bumped to 11th in the #69 WRT Audi after a late flurry of improvements, with championship leader Gabriele Tarquini down in 14th in the BRC Racing Hyundai.
The second race with the reversed grid is scheduled for 11:00 CET tomorrow morning.
