Local favourite John Filippi takes first TCR Europe pole of the season at Paul Ricard

Target Competition’s John Filippi will start the first TCR Europe series race of the 2020 season from pole position after topping qualifying at Paul Ricard.

The Frenchman set a time of 2:11.709 to beat Comtoyou Racing’s Mehdi Bennani by just three-hundredths of a second.

Brutal Fish Racing’s Dan Lloyd will start third in his Honda Civic Type-R TCR, making it three different brands in the first three places.

Filippi picks up ten championship points as a result of his pole time, with the revised qualifying points system for 2020 reward the top ten fastest drivers.

With the tenth quickest time in Q2, Profi Car Team Halder’s Mike Halder will start tomorrow’s reversed grid second race – where the top ten in Q1 are reversed – from pole position, alongside the Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS of Sami Taoufik.

Q1

Lloyd set the initial benchmark of Q1 with a 2m12.696, some seven-tenths of a second faster than the Boutsen Ginion Honda Civic Type-R TCR of Tom Coronel.

Briché’s JSB Compétition Peugeot 308TCR then improved his time but was still just over seven-tenths slower than Lloyd, in second.

Along with Teddy and Jimmy Clairet, Briché was able to use the Peugeot’s superior straight-line speed down the Mistral Straight to move closer to the fastest time, which was now set by the PSS Racing Honda of Girolami.

Jessica Bäckman then put in a stunning lap towards the end of the session to go fastest overall. The Swede, in the Target Competition Hyundai i30 N TCR set a time of 2:11.958 to go nearly three-tenths faster than Girolami’s best.

Brother Andreas Bäckman joined his sister at the top with the second quickest time at the flag to ensure both comfortably made it into Q2.

Free practice 1 pace-setter Dáni Nagy was one not to make it through to the second segment of qualifying in his BRC Racing Hyundai i30 N TCR.

The Hungarian struggled to set a competitive lap-time in Q1 and will line up for both races in 14th on the grid.

Q2

Bennani was quickest out of the blocks at the start of Q2 but was quickly beaten by what would ultimately be the pole lap of Filippi.

Track conditions had clearly improved to the point where almost all of the top ten were setting times quicker than in Q1.

The second segment proved somewhat anti-climatic as no notable improvements were produced in the remaining minutes.

Behind Lloyd in fourth was guest entry Girolami, with Jimmy Clairet and Teddy Clairet were up next in their Team Clairet Sport Peugeot 308TCRs.

Jessica and Andreas Bäckman will start seventh and eighth respectively, with Taoufik and Halder rounding out the top ten.

Briché will start eleventh, while BRC Racing’s Mat’o Homola starts 12th.

The first race of the 2020 TCR Europe series is scheduled to take place later on today, at 12:50 CEST.