ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt dominates TCR Europe’s Monza qualifying

ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt surprised the TCR Europe paddock by taking a dominant pole position at Monza.

Volt was only sixth in Q1, which was topped by PMA Motorsport’s Felice Jelmini in an Italian one-two as Comtoyou Racing’s Nicola Baldan was second fastest.

The top five positions were filled by Audi RS 3 LMS TCR drivers, with Volt 0.851 seconds off the pace. There were only two drivers in the 14-car field who failed to progress to Q2, with Levente Losonczy having all of his laps deleted for causing red flags and the debuting Ivan Peklin not getting through as he was 3.943s off the pace.

Baldan was first to the top in Q2, setting a 1:57.494. He occupied first place only 40 seconds though before team-mate Viktor Davidovki bettered his benchmark by 0.205s.

Davidovski’s 1:57.289 was good enough to keep him in provisional pole position for several minutes before Kobe Pauwels – another of Comtoyou’s drivers – went faster by just 0.026s.

There was still time left on the clock for drivers to get two more laps in, and Volt shot to the top by over half a second. Not only could nobody get near his pace, but also none of the 12 participants in Q2 were able to set personal bests on their final lap.

That meant Volt took pole by 0.505s in his Honda Civic Type R, with Pauwels leading a group of five Comtoyou drivers.

Baldan qualified third, just 0.012s short of Pauwels, Davidovski was shuffled down to fourth and John Filippi was a further 0.01s behind him in fifth.

There was the a gap of 0.59s to the team’s new signing Lewis Brown in sixth, with MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson the next best non-Audi driver in seventh place in his Lynk & Co 03 TCR.

Points leader Tom Coronel could only qualify eighth, while Jelmini propped up the timesheet in 12th as he had his sole lap time deleted for track limits abuse.

Race 1 is due to start at 18:25 CEST today.