Photo: TCR Europe

Jimmy Clairet takes first TCR Europe pole of the year at Portimão

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Team Clairet Sport’s Jimmy Clairey claimed pole position for the opening round of the 2025 TCR Europe season in an ultra-close qualifying session at Portimão.

The Audi RS 3 LMS driver set a best time of 1m50.798 to edge out Audi stablemate Felice Jelmini by just 0.046s in Q2.

Indeed, such was the competitiveness of the session, the top five cars were split by a mere two-tenths.

Eric Gené will line up third on the grid for the opening race of the year later on Saturday, the Spaniard ending up five-hundredths of a second off pole and just one-hundredth behind Jelmini.

MM Motorsport’s Marco Butti (Honda Civic Type-R) and Q1 pacesetter Felipe Fernandez (Auto Club RC2 Valles Honda Civic Type-R) completed the top five.

Clairet’s fastest lap came at the time when most of the top 12 who made it into Q2 had come into the pits, with just over three minutes remaining.

Until then, Jelmini had looked most likely to claim top spot, having leapt in front of Gené’s benchmark time of 1m50.857.

The final minutes gave the field the chance for a last effort but nobody was able to find an improvement, and it was Jimmy Clairet – having topped FP2 on Friday – who secured pole position.

Behind Fernandez came Teddy Clairet in the second Team Clairet Sport Audi in sixth, three-tenths off the pace, with Junui Park seventh in the Solite Indigo Racing Hyndai Elantra N TCR.

Viktor Andersson was eighth quickest in his MA:GP Lynk & Co ahead of Monlau Motorsport Cupra’s Jenson Brickley, while Max Hart rounded out the top 10 in his Target Hyundai Elantra.

Courtesy of his 10th quickest time in Q2, Hart will start race two from pole, with Brickley alongside the Irishman on the front row.

Missing the cut to make Q2 and therefore starting outside the top 12 for both races most notably was the ALM Motorsport Honda of Ruben Volt. The Estonian driver, a winner in TCR competition, was only 13th in Q1 and will have to work through the field.

Joining Volt on the Q2 sidelines were Giacomo Ghermandi, Nicola Baldan, Nicolas Taylor, Victor Fernández, Flippo Barberi, Junesung Park and the Navarro pairing of Jean-Laurent and Pierre-Arnaud.

Race 1 at Portimão is scheduled to take place later today at 13:45 local time.