Alex Ley has taken pole position on his TCR Europe series debut at Mugello, leading a BRC Racing Team 1-2 with team-mate Gabriele Covini just behind, while another series newcomer, Tiago Pernía, was the Hyundai pair’s closest threat in third.

Ley led the way throughout most of the first part of qualifying to safely progress into Qualifying 2, where he reeled off a pair of fast laps. His second lap, a 1:54.495, was enough to secure him pole position for his first race.

Team-mate Covini, who had set the lap record in the first part of Q1 at the final moment, also left it until the very end of Q2 to set a time that put him second fastest, demoting Pernía’s Squadra Martino-run Honda Civic to third.

Mike Halder set the fourth fastest time, seven-tenths of a second away from Ley’s pace, but it was a difficult session for his two ALM Motorsport team-mates. Max Hart and Ruben Volt qualified 11th and 12th, and so missed the top-ten reversed grid cut-off for Race 2.

The two Solite Indigo Racing Hyundais of Junesung and Junui Park both made the top ten, with Junesung fifth and Junui eighth.

The fastest of the CUPRAs was that of Marco Butti, who qualified seventh, just over a second down from pole. Butti’s Monlau Motorsport team-mate Viktor Andersson was ninth, securing a front-row spot for Race 2; he was unable to improve in the session after going off at Turn 3.

The two PMA Motorsport Audis made the top ten with Nicola Baldan in sixth, while Nicolas Taylor was tenth and secures the all-important pole position for the reversed race grid.

Ley’s pole is the first for a driver on their debut since Jaap van Lagen took pole position at Zandvoort in 2018, when he substituted for Jean-Karl Vernay in a Team WRT Audi.

The first race is scheduled to get underway at 18:00 CET.