WTCR Qualifying flash: Girolami heads Honda team-mate Guerrieri

Néstor Girolami scorched to the Race 1 pole position by pipping his ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport team-mate Esteban Guerrieri, in an eventful qualifying session at WTCR Clean Fuels for All Race of France on the streets of Circuit de Pau-Ville. Girolami secured the pole position by topping the top-five Q3 shoot-out, after the Q2 session was interrupted by a heavy accident for Thed Björk in his Cyan Performance Lynk & Co, from which the Swede was fortunate to emerge uninjured. In the 30-minute Q1 session, Mikel Azcona’s BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse Elantra N TCR topped the times ahead of Girolami, Gilles Magnus (Audi), Guerrieri and Ma Qing Hua (Lynk & Co).

As the top 12 progressed to Q2, six drivers missed the cut. They were headed by Rob Huff’s Zengő Motorsport Cupra Leon Competición, the British driver ending up just 0.063s slower than Santiago Urrutia who just made it through in P12. The Uruguayan had been fastest in both free practice sessions, so might have expected to qualify more comfortably than he did.

King of WTCR Yann Ehrlacher was also relieved to make it through after scrapping his Lynk & Co against a barrier and incurring damage. “I’m sorry for the guys, but we are on the edge and it can happen,” he said. “There is no margin for error here.” Beyond Huff, the others to miss the cut were Mehdi Bennani (Audi) in P14, Tiago Monteiro (Honda), Tom Coronel whose session was interrupted by a tyre off the rim on his Audi, Dániel Nagy (Cupra) and Wild Card entry Éric Cayrolle (Audi).