Photo: ACI Sport

Ruben Volt tops interrupted TCR Italy qualifying at Imola

By

ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt claimed pole position for the penultimate race of the TCR Italy season in a stop-start qualifying session at Imola.

Two red flags, the latter ending the session with just under two minutes to go, disrupted the running but Volt’s time of 1m50.701 was enough to come out on top by just 0.099s from Matteo Polini’s Audi RS 3 LMS.

TCR Italy points leader Franco Girolami was third quickest in his Aikoa Racing Honda Civic Type-R, fractionally ahead of reigning champion Niels Langeveld.

Girolami’s nearest title rival Aurélien Comte had a difficult session and will line up eighth in hus SP Competition Cupra León Competición.

At the start of the session, it was Girolami who set the initial pace on a 1m52.123, but that benchmark was progressively bettered as the rubber went down on the cool track.

Target Competition’s Marco Butti then hit the top but he was almost immediately beaten by Langeveld as the session approached half-distance. Meanwhile, Comte had only managed one representative lap-time, good enough for 12th.

A brief red flag delayed action slightly but when the session resumed with eight minutes remaining, it was Volt – courtesy of his improvement just before the stoppage – who held the top spot.

Girolami had improved to second but was almost three-tenths adrift of the Honda, while Langeveld had one of his final two laps deleted due to track limits infringements.

Ultimately, Volt’s pre-red flag time stood as the red flags came out again with two minutes remaining; the session was not restarted.

Just before then, Matteo Poloni jumped up to second and nearly grabbed pole following a sensational lap, which brought him to just under a tenth off Volt’s time.

Girolami had to be content with third, one place ahead of Langeveld with Park Junul fifth in his MM Motorsport Honda.

Butti was sixth in the end, with PMA Motosport’s Felice Jelmini seventh ahead of Comte in eighth.

Completing the top 10 was Paolo Rocca’s MM Motorsport entry and Rodolfo Massaro’s Target Competition Hyundai.

The first race of the final TCR Italy weekend of the season is scheduled to take place later on today at 13:30 CET.