Felipe Fernández edges pole in record-breaking session

Felipe Fernández topped the times in qualifying at Spa to secure pole ahead of the second round of the TCR Europe season.

The Spaniard managed to break the lap record that had been held since 2018 by Jean-Karl Vernay as he edged his way to the quickest time ahead of Eric Gené, with the pair split by just 0.050s.

Gené however carries a penalty from the season-opener in Portugal which means he wouldn’t have been on pole even if he had set the best time at the wheel of his Monlau Motorsport-run Cupra.

Santiago Concepción – who will be promoted onto the front row alongside his RC2 Racing Team partner – had topped the times in the first part of qualifying, having already broken below the lap record.

Jenson Brickley and Nicolas Taylor were amongst the fancied runners who failed to make it through the first part of the session, missing out on the battle for pole.

Gené topped the times early on in Q2 before Fernández hit the front to snare his second career pole and will line up ahead of Concepción and Ruben Volt in a Honda 1-2-3 after Gené’s penalty dropped him back to fourth.

Junesung Park was fifth quickest in his Solite Indigo Racing Hyundai ahead of Marco Butti – who bagged a top six finish despite a heavy crash in testing that left his MM Motorsport team facing a late night to carry out repairs.

Points leader Jimmy Clairet lines up seventh ahead of brother Teddy, with Sten-Dorian Piirimägi and Viktor Andersson rounding out the top ten.

That gives Andersson the reverse grid pole for race two.