Mikel Azcona secured pole position at Hyundai's home race in South Korea, leading a BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse 1-2 with teammate Norbert Michelisz second, and in doing so broke the record for the most pole positions in a season.
With Geely Cyan Racing's Santiago Urrutia qualifying in fourth place, Azcona has also cut Urrutia's lead in the drivers' championship battle by nine points, with Urrutia now just one point ahead heading into this afternoon's race.
Urrutia also has to carry a 12-place grid penalty due to an engine change, which will drop him to 16th in the field for the first race, leaving a clear opportunity for Azcona to retake the lead of the championship, which he held after the season opener at Misano.
In the first part of qualifying, the six drivers entered for the TCR Asia series just missed the cut to get into Q2. This put ATE Racing by DM23 driver Diego Moran on pole position for the class in the sole Honda Civic Type R on the grid.
The fastest time throughout all of qualifyiing was set by SP Compétition's Aurélien Comte in Qualifying 1, with a time of 1:40.101, but unfortunately the French driver was unable to replicate it in Qualifying 2 and had to settle for the sixth fastest time.
In Q2, Azcona's benchmark time of 1:40.438 gave him provisional pole on his first run, and he went two-tenths faster on his second run to put pole position out of reach.
Michelisz and Thed Björk set final flying laps to split Azcona and Urrutia, with Urrutia ending up fourth on the time sheets but still having to carry his grid penalty into Race 1.
Yann Ehrlacher qualified in fifth position, and will start from the second row with Björk after the penalty is applied, with Aurélien Comte leading off row three ahead of the fastest ETS Guest Star Trophy driver, local driver Junesung Park.
Viktor Andersson was tenth quickest and so the Swedish racer will provisionally start from pole position for Race 2, unless the driver behind him on the grid, Ma Qing Hua, sets the fastest lap in the first race and gains the extra position on the grid.
The first race is scheduled for 15:30 local time (08:30 CEST).
Picture: WSC/Paddocker
Qualifying
1:40.249 Mikel Azcona (BRC Hyundai Squadra Corse, Hyundai Elantra N)
1:40.371 Norbert Michelisz (BRC Hyundai Squadra Corse, Hyundai Elantra N)
1:40.407 Thed Björk (Geely Cyan Racing, Geely Preface)
Championship points
S. Urrutia, 236 pts.; 2. M. Azcona, 235; 3. N. Michelisz, 208
