Norbert Michelisz chose to “maximise track time” with pole-winning qualifying strategy

There were two distinct strategies teams took during qualifying for TCR World Tour’s inaugural event at Algarve, and Norbert Michelisz was pleased with his team’s chosen route after claiming pole.

BRC Racing driver Michelisz was among those who in the second segment of qualifying did a lap of warming up the tyres and then went for pole on their second tour of the circuit, meaning he had posted a laptime by the halfway mark of the 10-minute session.

Other teams, such as Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, saved their tyres by waiting until later in the session once the track was gripped up before lapping at a representative pace. Ultimately the former strategy proved more effective than the latter, in part influenced by traffic in the final minutes.

“Pretty bad!” Michelisz joked when TouringCarTimes asked him about how qualifying went. “No, to be honest, we managed to do very, very good laps. We were on the edge.

“Fortunately it was easy today to build the confidence, so no big mistakes, and happy for the team and of course happy for myself.

“We knew that we needed to maximise track time, and also to push 100% [from the off], he said of his team’s strategy. Because yesterday we had the feeling that we are a bit behind, so today was all about pushing whenever we have the possibility to do that.”

Pole was taken by a slim 0.035 seconds over team-mate Mikel Azcona, giving Hyundai a one-two with its Elantra N TCRs, with Comtoyou Racing’s Rob Huff just 0.045s behind in third place and driving an Audi RS 3 LMS II TCR.

Huff’s team-mate Frédéric Vervisch was fourth fastest, and Néstor Girolami put the sole Honda on the entry list in fifth on the timesheet. Ma Qing Hua was Lynk & Co’s top driver in sixth, and Comtoyou’s Tom Coronel was the fastest of the drivers scoring points towards the TCR Europe championship in seventh.

“To be honest, I just squeezed the car. I drove the balls out of it, and that was it,” Coronel quipped. “And I finally ended up in this position. As you should do in qualifying.

“I had a good lap, honestly. First sector was purple [fastest of anyone]. So I was really on it. Last sector I’m losing three tenths, which I don’t understand.”

The longer wheelbase Audis tend to struggle with tyre wear more than other cars, but Coronel said he did not think that was the cause of his time loss at the end of the lap.

“Because I got it [the time loss] already all week, so we have to work on that part. I feel good. Last year I had a race here, I know the track, I was testing here a lot. Also out of TCR [cars]. So it’s started again. Normally I start quite a big step behind, but now I feel strong.”

The next best TCR Europe runner was his debuting team-mate Kobe Pauwels, who was ninth fastest and only 0.411s off Michelisz’s laptime.

Race 1 for the TCR World Tour and TCR Europe starts at 14:20 local time later today.