Photo: WTCR

Tiago Monteiro heads Honda 1-2-3 in chaotic first Suzuka qualifying

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Tiago Monteiro headed a Honda 1-2-3 in a chaotic first World Touring Car Cup qualifying session at Suzuka with four red flag interruptions in the very wet conditions. Münnich Motorsport team-mates Esteban Guerrieri and Néstor Girolami claimed positions two and three.

The KCMG driver headed the field early on and was able to respond when his competitors improved their times to claim pole by 0.128 seconds over Guerrieri.

The first red flag was caused by PWR Racing driver Daniel Haglöf, going off in the final part of the circuit.

And it was just moments after the field was released again that Haglöf’s team-mate Mikel Azcona went off after contact with Cupra colleague Tom Coronel, resulting in both of them having to sit out the rest of the session.

The third red flag was caused by Cyan Racing driver Yvan Muller, going off at high speed in Turn 1, severely damaging his Lynk & Co 03 TCR. The team is currently working hard to try and repair the car ahead of the second qualifying session.

The fourth and final red flag session came just as Monteiro had claimed the fastest time, with KCMG team-mate Attila Tassi spinning off into the gravel at Turn 1.

The green flag was shown with just four minutes left of the session, seeing a flurry of improvements from the drivers as track conditions seemed to improve slightly.

Niels Langeveld was best of the non-Honda drivers behind the wheel of his Audi RS 3 LMS, claiming fourth position ahead of team-mate Frederic Vervisch.

Reigning champion Gabriele Tarquini was again fastest of the Hyundai drivers in sixth position, ahead of the impressive wild card driver Ritomo Miyata, placing his Audi RS 3 LMS in seventh position on the grid.

Thed Björk set the eighth fastest time for Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, with manufacturer colleague Andy Priaulx in ninth position. Two-time Rallycross World champion Johan Kristoffersson rounded off the top ten, six-tenths from pole position.

Championship leader Norbert Michelisz continued to struggle, placing his Hyundai i30 N TCR in 14th position on the grid, eight-tenths from Monteiro’s time.

The second qualifying session starts at 15:30 local time / 08:30 CEST.