Esteban Guerrieri claimed his first pole position in the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour at Mexico City, setting a last-minute flying lap in his GOAT Racing Honda Civic FL5 to outpace Lynk & Co Cyan Racing’s Yann Ehrlacher by just under a tenth of a second, while all three BRC Hyundai cars failed to make it into the Q2 pole shootout.
The Lynk & Co cars looked strong throughout the 20-minute Q1, with Thed Björk setting the early pace before the Honda cars came to the fore, with Guerrieri and his new teammate Ignacio Montenegro.
John Filippi and all three BRC Hyundai cars were at risk at the bottom of the World Tour competitors, but Filippi was able to make a late improvement to go tenth, knocking the CUPRA of Michel Jourdain Jr. out, while all three Hyundai drivers failed to improve and dropped out of Q1 for the first time.
The Rejón brothers Julio and Rodrigo, stars of TCR México, put in an impressive performance as they both advanced to Q2 in their CUPRA Leon cars run by the ProRally Mothers team.
In Q2, it was Björk who clocked a storming first lap to break the 1:34 barrier for the first time, just ahead of Montenegro and Ehrlacher, but on the second run, the Frenchman took over at the top with a time of 1:33.814 that was instantly bettered by Guerrieri, whose lap of 1:33.742 assured him of his first pole in the category, and his first TCR pole since Germany 2019.
He was also the first driver to be awarded with the new Pole Position Trophy that he received from the hands of promoter Marcello Lotti.
Björk’s time was good enough to keep him third on the grid, ahead of newcomer Montenegro, who will start ahead of the fifth-placed Santiago Urrutia’s Lynk & Co. Aurélien Comte qualified sixth in his SP Compétition CUPRA on his and the team’s full-time debut in the World Tour; the best-placed Mexican driver was Julio Rejón, eighth while Rodrigo qualified 10th.
The first race is scheduled for 15:00 local time today (23:00 CEST).
Qualifying
1:33.742 Esteban Guerrieri (GOAT Racing, Honda Civic Type R FL5)
1:33.814 Yann Ehrlacher (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, Lynk & Co 03 FL)
1:33.932 Thed Björk (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, Lynk & Co 03 FL)
Championship points – TCR China Challenge
- E. Guerrieri, 15 pts; 2. Y. Ehrlacher, 10; 3. T. Björk, 8
Picture: WSC/FPC
