Photo: TCR South America

Néstor Girolami leads Hyundai 1-2-3 at the Oscar Cabalén

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Néstor Girolami claimed pole position in Saturday’s qualifying session at the Oscar Cabalén circuit ahead of the sixth round of the 2026 TCR South America season.

The Hyundai MSA driver emerged from the session with the quickest time to edge out fellow Hyundai drivers Joaquín Cafaro and Camilo Trappa in a session that kicked off in low temperatures with drivers facing a huge challenge to deal with low grip.

The entire field headed to the track for a first run to warm up the tyres, returning to the pits to switch the front and rear tyres.

Girolami led the first part of the qualifying session with a lap time of 1:30.807, 0.627 seconds ahead of Cafaro, who switched to Hyundai ahead of this event. Tiago and Leonel Pernía followed, with Raphael Reis right behind.

Juan Algel Rosso was sixth in Q1, followed by Camilo Trappa, Nicolás Fuca and Nelson Piquet Jr.

Adrián Chiriano, Enzo Gianfratti and Fabián Yannantuoni completed the list of drivers going into Q2.

The ten-minute Q2 started with the entire field, except Reis, taking to the track for the first run. Girolami rose to the top, followed by Cafaro and Leonel Pernía.

Reis took to the track four minutes into the session, rising to third place in his first run, as Piquet Jr. settled in fifth.

Girolami scored the pole position with a lap-time of 1:30.947, two-tenths ahead of Cafaro and three-tenths over Trappa, making the qualifying session a 1-2-3 for Hyundai.

Leonel Pernía improved in his last lap to rise to fourth position, four-tenths off the pace, with Reis behind, just two-hundredths further adrift.

Piquet Jr. qualified in sixth position, 0.792 seconds behind Girolami, with his team-mate Tiago Pernía just four-thousandths of a second behind. Rosso was eighth, 1.3 seconds off the pace, with Gianfratti and Fuca completing the top ten.

“I thank the team for a great development work and this is a track I know very well, as it is close to my home, although it had been eight years since I had competed here,” Girolami said after the session. “This is an important race for us if we want to come into the fight for the championship.”

The TCR South America field returns to the track on Sunday at 10:13 local time (15:13 CEST) for Race 1.