Luca Engstler makes it three from three with Bangsaen pole

Luca Engstler continued his impressive run of success in TCR Asia qualifying this season with a third pole of the year at the Bangsaen street circuit.

The Team Engstler driver proved to be the class of the field during the session with a dominant performance that saw him beat Lo Sze Ho to top spot by a margin of nearly two seconds, with Nattanid Leewattanavaragul best of the TCR Thailand entrants in third.

Engstler was the man to beat from the early stages of qualifying in his Volkswagen Golf GTI and headed Q1 by a margin of over 1.7s over Leewattanavaragul, with current points leader Mitchell Cheah down in fifth spot.

Of the 13 drivers entered this weekend, only Douglas Khoo failed to make it into Q2, with a trip into the tyre barriers in his SEAT meaning he was the only driver to not take part in the final phase of qualifying.

On his first flying laps of Q2, Engstler again went right to the head of the field and lowed his best time to a 1m 42.727s to secure pole, with Ho taking second spot by two-tenths of a second in his Honda Civic.

Lewattanavaragul and Pattarapol Vongprai share row two, with Diego Moran and Jakraphan Davee rounding out the top six.

Pole position for race two went to Ivan Szeto, who posted the tenth best time despite crashing out of the session.