Enrico Bettera claims pole in close-fought qualifying at Imola
Enrico Bettera, driving an Audi RS 3 LMS, took his third pole position of the year at Imola for the fifth round of the 2019 TCR Italy championship, just 0.076 seconds ahead of Scuderia del Girasole driver Matteo Greco.
The session was stopped with a red flag after seven minutes as Gunter Benninger stopped his Cupra TCR at Turn 3. Later, with just five minutes to go, his Team Wimmer Werk colleague Peter Gross had a similar issue, stopping his Cupra TCR on the main straight but out of the way from the cars on track.
BF Motorsport’s Jacopo Guidetti, driving an Audi RS 3 LMS, was third, closely followed by Igor Stefanovski, two-tenths of the pace.
Team Wimmer Werk’s Felix Wimmer was fifth at the wheel of a Cupra TCR, with Stefano Comini in sixth, driving a Honda Type R FK8 TCR of his own team, 0.364 seconds behind Bettera.
Championship leader Salvatore Tavano of Scuderia del Girasole qualified in seventh place, with Target Competition’s Marco Pellegrini claiming eighth place as the top Hyundai driver, scoring the pole position for Race 2 with the reverse grid rule.
Eric Scalvini, with the third Cupra TCR from Scuderia del Girasole, was ninth, with Raffaele Lissignoli, also driving a Cupra TCR, completing the top ten, 1.2 seconds off the pace.
The start of Race 1 is scheduled at 16:05 CEST today.
