Super-Sub Jean-Karl Vernay takes close pole at Queensland Raceway
Jean-Karl Vernay has taken pole by the tightest of margins ahead of today’s first TCR Australia series race at Queensland Raceway after going fastest late in the qualifying session to upset the local drivers.
Drafted in by the Melbourne Performance Centre team for this weekend as a hired gun in their Audi RS 3 LMS, the talented Frenchman showed his experience in the machine by taking pole on his first ever visit to the venue, albeit by under one hundredth of a session.
Holding out the championship contenders in a tightly contested half hour session, the former TCR International series champion has put himself in the best position possible to cause headaches to the Australian drivers this weekend.
As qualifying began, the first quick laps started five minutes into the session with Dylan O’Keeffe going quickest in the Ashley Seward Motorsport Alfa Romeo, putting in the fastest time of the weekend with a 1:13.837, a second clear of the pack.
O’Keeffe further lowered the bar on his next flying lap, going around the circuit in 1:13.358 as Jordan Cox put his Alfa Romeo into second, joining his pseudo-team-mate as the only cars to get into the 1:13’s so far. Championship leader Will Brown was able to slot the HMO Customer Racing Hyundai into second, splitting the two Alfas ten minutes into the session but he still trialled O’Keeffe by nearly half a second.
While the lead didn’t change as the session moved on, the order behind O’Keeffe kept changing as Tony D’Alberto put the Wall Racing prepared Honda Civic TCR into second spot, some 0.25 seconds down on the session leader at the time. Russell Ingall got himself between O’Keeffe and D’Alberto halfway through the session in the Melbourne Performance Centre Audi but still remained two tenths away from the lead Alfa.
It took until the 15th minute for O’Keeffe to be displaced from the top of the order with Jean-Karl Vernay in his MPC Audi taking the top spot with a lap of 1:13.337, showing his knowledge of the car in his first visit to Queensland Raceway.
Carrying on his form from topping Friday practice, John Martin made his way up to first in his Wall Racing Civic, only just missing out on getting down to the 1:12’s as he lapped the circuit in 1:13.157, putting a slight gap on the chasing pack as O’Keeffe tried to respond and was unable to topple the Honda.
As the clock ticked down towards the end of the session, Brown put in the best lap to move up to the head of the order, his lap of 1:13.095 just 0.07 clear of Martin behind him as the rest of the field rolled out onto the track for their final flying laps.
Brown then lowered his best lap and became the first driver into the 1:12’s, posting a 1:12.989 as O’Keeffe responded with a 1:12.992. Both were then dropped a spot when Martin was able to do a 1:12.947 in the last five minutes, going back to the head of the order.
Vernay pipped Martin by the slimmest of margins, driving his Audi just 0.006 of a second faster than the Honda. Martin and Brown parked up before the end of the session as O’Keeffe stayed out, looking to retake pole but he couldn’t stitch together a strong lap at the end.
With the session over, Vernay took pole by less than a hundredth of a second from Martin as Brown and O’Keeffe finished third and fourth, just under a tenth away from the leading Audi.
Today’s race will start at 2:15pm local time.
