Mikel Azcona beats Yann Ehrlacher to Paul Ricard pole position
Mikel Azcona beat reigning champion Yann Ehrlacher by 99 thousands of a second in the FIA TCR World Tour qualifying session at Paul Ricard in France.
The Hyundai driver topped most of the session but was bumped down in the dying minutes, only for the Spaniard to snatch the pole on his last lap.
BRC team-mate Norbert Michelisz made it two Hyundais in the top three, three tenths behind.
Thed Björk headed points leader and team-mate Santiago Urrutia in fourth and fifth, 0.581 and 0.655 seconds from pole respectively.
Jenson Brickley took his ALM Motorsport-prepared Honda to sixth place, seven tenths from the top time, ahead of the leading Cupra driver in the form of Aurélien Comte in seventh.
Teddy Clairet finished eighth ahead of Geely driver Ma Qing Hua who will be on the reversed-grid Race 2 front row after finishing ninth.
The reversed pole position will go to Audi driver Manuel Fernandes who finished tenth and last of the Q2 session.
Victory Weyrich, who finished Q1 in eighth, failed to take part in Q2 due to an unconfirmed issue with his Cupra.
Julien Briche also failed to take part in Q2 as he stopped on track with two minutes left of the Q1 session due to a technical issue.
Urrutia continues at the top of the standings, 18 points ahead of Björk and Azcona who share second place, while Michelisz is 30 points behind in fourth.
The first race of the weekend starts at 12:40 CEST on Sunday.
