Esteban Guerrieri claims Nürburgring Race 1 pole in wet qualifying
Esteban Guerrieri has claimed his second pole position of the season for the first race at the Nürburgring, with the Argentinian topping a wet qualifying session, where everyone’s first laps were the ones that counted.
The Münnich Motorsport Honda driver lapped the circuit with a time of 10:30.955, over a minute and a half slower than the earlier practice sessions, after a heavy rain shower doused the track inbetween sessions.
After Guerrieri’s first lap, behind him was BRC Hyundai driver Norbert Michelisz, six seconds slower, with Guerrieri’s Münnich Honda team-mate Néstor Girolami third fastest.
The bulk of the remainder of the session was disrupted after PWR Racing’s Mikel Azcona crashed out at Bergwerk in his Cupra TCR, with the yellow flags deployed as the Spaniard’s car was recovered, preventing any improvements.
With Azcona’s car locked in gear, the officials chose to allow the session to continue under green conditions with four minutes to go, but by then conditions had worsened.
The field went out, with a number of cars risking slick tyres, but were caught out by the increased rain, with Benjamin Leuchter’s Volkswagen, Tom Coronel’s Cupra, and Kevin Ceccon in the Alfa Romeo all going wide, while Frédéric Vervisch crashed his Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS at Hatzenbach at the end of the session, the second of the team’s cars to suffer significant damage today.
Guerrieri therefore secured pole and extends his points lead to 15 points over Lynk & Co’s Thed Björk, with Norbert Michelisz qualifying in second ahead of Girolami, while Vervisch has qualified in fourth for tomorrow’s race ahead of Björk.
The best of the Volkswagens was Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Rob Huff in ninth, while the best of the Cupras was PWR Racing’s Daniel Haglöf in 18th.
The first race is scheduled for 17:30 CEST on Friday, while Qualifying 2 for Races 2 and 3 takes place at 19:30 CEST this evening.
