Photo: PURE ETCR

Mattias Ekström claims Super Final A pole position in Copenhagen

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Mattias Ekström produced a sensational lap to put himself on pole position for the PURE ETCR Super Final A on the streets of Copenhagen.

The Cupra X Zengo Motorsport driver put in a lap-time of 1:11.042 in the one-lap Time Trial to secure the top spot from Romeo Ferraris’ Luca Filippi.

Having suffered from a poor start in his opening Pool A Battle on Saturday, Ekström’s weekend now appears to be back on track after backing his Round 2 Battle with the fastest time over one lap of the 2.4km street circuit.

Ekström was the first of the six cars to head out on his flying lap, and the Swede completed a charging performance to set his quickest time, attacking from the outset and carrying plenty of speed through the corners.

Next up was Hyundai Motorsport’s Jean-Karl Vernay who, after winning both of his Battles on Saturday had hoped for better than his fourth place in the Time Trial.

Vernay put in a solid if unspectacular lap of 1:12.104, but was just over a second in arrears of Ekström at the finish.

Highlighting the speed of the M1RA run Romeo Ferraris Alfas, Oliver Webb and team-mate Luca Filippi followed Vernay and each produced a lap within a second of Ekström’s best.

Webb was third on track and drove a committed lap to go 0.934s off the pace, with a big front lock-up after the flag proof that the British driver had been on a charge.

Filippi followed and emerged as Ekström’s closest challenger in second, just three-tenths of a second shy of the overall fastest. Filippi dropped only a tenth of a second in the opening sector, but dropped a quarter of a second in the middle split, which proved costly.

Another tenth down in the final sector left Filippi second best over one lap, but with the Alfa showing better race pace, it promises to be a tightly fought Super Final this afternoon.

Ekström’s team-mate Dániel Nagy was fifth fastest in the second of the Zengo Motorsport Cupra Xs, 1.363s off the pace, while John Filippi – who crashed in Saturday’s additional test session – was the slowest in his Hyundai Velostar N ETCR.

The Super Final A is scheduled to start later on today at 12:25 CET.