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Thed Björk beats Josh Buchan to pole at wet Inje Speedium

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Thed Björk claimed pole position in style during a wet FIA TCR World Tour qualifying session at a wet Inje Speedium in South Korea, beating TCR Australia champion Josh Buchan by more than half a second.

Overnight rain saw the first qualifying session starting with a very wet track which never dried up throughout the Q1 and Q1 sessions.

The first session was red-flagged once due to an incident between Björk (Lynk & Co) and local driver Reinghbert G Diwa (Hyundai).

Diwa stopped on track and had to be towed back in while Björk could continue with front-damage to his Lynk & Co 03 TCR, an incident which was announced to be investigated after qualifying.

Reigning champion Norbert Michelisz’s dreadful weekend continued as he was eliminated after the Q1 session, only able to post the 14th fastest time.

Also out after Q1 were FIA TCR World Tour front-runners Néstor Girolami and Ignacio Montenegro.

The Q2 session saw some drivers gambling for a mix of dry and wet weather tyres, one of them being BRC Hyundai driver Mikel Azcona.

But the Spaniard could only manage tenth place and was close to seven seconds slower than Björk.

Björk set a fastest lap of 1:51.698 on his first attempt and Buchan rose to second place with one minute left of the session.

Points leader Yann Ehrlacher of Cyan Racing was third fastest and close to eight tenths slower than team-mate Björk.

Ma Qing Hua and Santiago Urrutia made it four Lynk & Cos in the top five while Esteban Guerrieri, who topped the Q1 session, claimed sixth.

Aurélien Comte claimed seventh in his Cupra ahead of local drivers Junesung and Junui Park in eighth and ninth for Solite Indigo Racing.

The pole handed Björk 15 points as he closes in on Guerrieri who currently holds second place overall, with just four points separating the two. Ehrlacher continues at the top on 304 points, 42 more than Guerrieri.

The first race of the weekend starts at 16:05 local time/09:05 CEST.