Josh Files fights off Gilles Magnus to score Hockenheim pole position
Josh Files has taken pole position for the second round of the TCR Europe Touring Car Series, fending off Comtoyou Racing Audi driver Gilles Magnus by just one-hundredth of a second, with their qualifying duel seeing Magnus ending up in the gravel trap.
In the first part of qualifying, it was a mixed performance for the Brutal Fish Racing Team, with team owner Martin Ryba crashing out at Turn 1 and causing a red flag, relegating himself to 31st on the grid for both of the weekend’s races, while new signing Dan Lloyd was at the top of the time sheets in his Honda Civic TCR.
Julien Briché was second fastest and safely into Q2 in his JSB Peugeot 308TCR, along with Gilles Magnus’s Audi who was third.
The main names to miss the cut were Stian Paulsen, who was kicked out of the top 12 by a late improvement from BRC Hyundai driver Luca Filippi; Target Competition Hyundai driver Dusan Borkovic, who qualified 14th, WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli who was 15th, TCR Europe series newcomer Tom Coronel in 21st in the Boutsen Ginion Honda, and joint-points leader Nelson Panciatici in the M Racing Hyundai – who had his first laps deleted due to track limits.
In Q2, there was time for just two runs – with Files producing a time of 1:47.095 to set a strong target time, just 0.010 seconds ahead of Magnus’ Audi.
Filippi had his best time deleted, and found himself at the back of order after their first run.
On the second run, Engstler and Briché were able to improve, with Engstler going third fastest, while Briché knocked Homola out of the all-important tenth place and so secured pole position for the reversed grid second race.
Files and Magnus were both set to improve, but Magnus went off at Turn 13, bringing out the yellow flags, and locking in the grid, with Files taking pole position ahead of Magnus, with Engstler completing the top three.
Maxime Potty was the top Volkswagen in fourth for WRT ahead of Andreas Bäckman’s Target Hyundai, with Aurélien Comte the best-placed of the Peugeots in sixth.
Yesterday’s pace-setter Santiago Urrutia was seventh, with Dan Lloyd’s Brutal Fish Honda eighth ahead of former WestCoast Racing team-mate Jessica Bäckman, in her Target Hyundai i30 N TCR.
Julien Briché was tenth, and so will start the reversed grid race from pole ahead of Bäckman and Lloyd.
The first race is scheduled for 14:40 CEST today, with Race 2 at 11:35 tomorrow.
