Aurélien Comte claims maiden FIA TCR World Tour pole at Zhuzhou

Aurélien Comte claimed his maiden FIA TCR World Tour pole position in qualifying for the first race of the weekend at Zhuzhou in China, beating title contender Thed Björk by close to three tenths.

The first part of qualifying saw three top drivers eliminated in the form of Santiago Urrutia in eleventh, Ignacio Montenegro in 12th and Ryan MacMillan in 13th.

Urrutia, who missed the cut by four thousands of a second, was involved in an incident with local driver Reignbert G. Diwa with six minutes left of the session as the two made contact.

Diwa was involved in a second incidents a couple of minutes later as he came to a halt at the pit exit, with reigning champion Norbert Michelisz almost crashing into him while entering the circuit.

TCR Asia driver Diego Moran came to a halt on track in the dying minutes of Q1 with a broken front suspension, having finished the session in 14th place.

The start of Q2 saw Cupra driver Comte setting the fastest lap on his first attempt, beating Lynk & Co Cyan Racing’s Björk by 0.268 seconds.

BRC Hyundai driver Michelisz was third, 71 thousands of a second behind Björk.

Reigning Supercars Champion Will Brown claimed an impressive fourth on his TCR return, 0.001 seconds behind Michelisz.

Local hero Ma Qing Hua claimed fifth place on the grid ahead of points leader and Cyan Racing team-mate Yann Ehrlacher.

Mikel Azcona will start the first race from seventh ahead of title contender Esteban Guerrieri of GOAT Racing Honda who will have a tough job from eighth on the grid.

Fellow Hyundai driver Néstor Girolami and Lo Sze Ho rounded off the top ten.

Björk’s second place in qualifying brings the Swede eight points closer to team-mate Ehrlacher in the standings for a gap of 34 points between the two.

The first race of the weekend starts at 15:00 local time/08:00 CET today.