Joint-championship leaders Franco Girolami and Aurélien Comte have locked out the front row in qualifying at Brno, with Girolami now assuming a three-point lead in the standings, while the Lynk & Co of Viktor Andersson was a close third.

It was the TCR Eastern Europe points leader Mat’o Homola who led the way in the first part of qualifying with a time of 2:12.938 in his Janík Motorsport Hyundai, just 37-thousandths clear of Franco Girolami’s Monlau Motorsport CUPRA.

Just behind them was the wild card entry of Bartosz Groszek, the Polish driver just two-tenths off the pace in his Aditis Racing Audi RS 3 LMS.

With two minutes to a lap around the 5.4km circuit, there was really only time for one run in Q2. Homola set the benchmark time, but he was immediately bettered by both of the rival CUPRAs of Girolami and Comte, before a fast run from Viktor Andersson moved him up to third in his MA:GP Lynk & Co 03 TCR.

Homola had to settle for the fourth quickest time. Homola was later split from his team-mate Adam Kout by Martin Kadlečík’s Audi.

Just behind the TCR Eastern Europe trio was last year’s TCR South America champion and TCR Europe rookie points leader Ignacio Montenegro, the best-placed of the Honda drivers.

The session worked out well for Montenegro’s ALM Motorsport team, with the Argentinian driver’s team-mate Levente Losonczy ending the session in tenth place and so provisionally securing pole position for Race 2 on Sunday.

The first race of the weekend is scheduled for 14:15 CEST and will be streamed live on TCR Europe’s Facebook page and also on the TCR Eastern Europe series’ YouTube channel.