Felipe Fernández has claimed his second career pole position, and set a new lap record, finally breaking the record set by Jean-Karl Vernay in TCR Europe’s first season as a series back in 2018 by more than 1.5 seconds. Eric Gené set the second fastest time in his CUPRA, but as he carries a penalty from Portimao, Santiago Concepción will be promoted to second and will form an all RC2 Racing Team front row for Race 1.

A frenetic first part of qualifying saw times tumble, and a number of lap times deleted due to track limits violations, which contributed to a number of surprise drivers not making it through to the second part.

Q1 was topped by Concepción, whose Honda set a time of 2:27.710, already beating the lap record by more than a second, while the names to fall included current young drivers’ trophy leader Jenson Brickley, who only managed 16th in his CUPRA, as well as PMA Motorsport’s Nicolas Taylor, who after topping two of the four test sessions yesterday, missed the cut for Q2 by just under a tenth of a second and will start 14th.

In Q2, Eric Gené briefly moved to the top with a time of 2:27.234, but he was immediately toppled by Fernández with a time just 0.050 seconds faster, with the Spanish driver going on to claim his second pole position in a row at Spa-Francorchamps, and secure the Pole Position Award by TR Watches.

Concepcíon put in the third fastest time, while Ruben Volt was fourth quickest, just 0.151 seconds back in an ultra-tight qualifying session. Following Gené’s grid penalty, Concepción and Volt will move up and form an all-Honda top three for the first race.

Junesung Park was an impressive fifth quickest in his Solite Indigo Racing Hyundai, while team-mate Junui Park was set to qualify tenth and pick up the reversed grid pole before a late improvement on his second flying lap from newcomer Sten Dorian Piirimägi. The ALM Motorsport Honda went ninth fastest, with Viktor Andersson demoted to tenth, the Swedish racer gets the reversed grid Race 2 pole.

Marco Butti, whose Honda Civic was repaired overnight after a significant crash in testing yesterday, put his car sixth in the session, just ahead of current championship leader Jimmy Clairet - who qualified seventh.

The first race of the weekend takes place at 12:25 CEST tomorrow, and will be streamed live on the TCR TV YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@TCRTV