Photo: TCR Australia

Ben Bargwanna claims shock Sydney pole as rain catches front runners off guard

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Ben Bargwanna claimed a shock joint TCR World Tour and TCR Australia pole position as a rain shower hit Sydney Motorsport Park just as qualifying began, catching several of the top teams off guard.

Some light rain drops just before the start of Q1 turned into heavy rainfall just as the drivers headed out on track for their first flying lap.

Several teams still opted to take their drivers in to their normal routine of swapping the front and rear tyres while track conditions quickly worsened.

This saw the elimination of all but one of the Lynk & Co Cyan Racing drivers, who topped the practice sessions, as Ma Qing Hua was alone in making it to Q2 of the Swedish outfit.

Title contender Yann Ehrlacher finished a disappointed 13th, Thed Björk 15th and Santiago Urrutia 16th.

Honda driver Néstor Girolami was also eliminated, finishing 12th.

The rain soon held up and track conditions quickly improved as drivers headed out for the Q2 session.

And Garry Rogers Motorsport driver Bargwanna (Peugeot) hit the sweet spot, claiming pole with a time of 1:37.8033 on his last lap, beating fellow TCR Australia driver Will Brown (Audi) by close to eight tenths of a second.

Mikel Azcona was best of the TCR World Tour drivers in third position, with fellow Hyundai driver and TCR Australia title contender Bailey Sweeny in fourth.

Rob Huff took his Comtoyou Racing prepared Audi RS 3 LMS to fifth place ahead of Lynk & Co driver Ma in sixth.

TCR Australia points leader Josh Buchan of HMO Customer Racing finished seventh ahead of TCR World Tour points leader Norbert Michelisz, while Jimmy Clairet (Peugeot) and Zac Soutar (Audi) rounded off the top ten.

The first race of the weekend starts at 20:40 local time/10:40 CET.