Gabriele Covini claimed his first pole position in the TCR Europe series at Monza, and obliterated the all-time TCR record by more than a second in the process for BRC Racing Team, with Junui Park making it an all-Hyundai front row.

Covini topped the time sheets in Q1 with a time of 1:53.580, before a 1:53.613 secured him the Pole Position Award by TR Watches in the second part of qualifying.

The PMA Motorsport Audis of Nicolas Taylor and Nicola Baldan, which had dominated in practice, were slightly out of position in qualifying. While both Baldan and Taylor were safely through to Q2, Taylor’s time of 1:53.777 put him third on the grid, just two-tenths from Covini’s time, while Baldan’s final flying lap moved him up from tenth to fifth in the session just as the chequered flag fell.

Taylor however was the best-placed of the main title contenders and so extended his lead in the standings to 19 points.

The fourth fastest driver in qualifying was ALM Motorsport’s Mike Halder, and the German driver moves up to second in the standings as a result, just ahead of the Monlau Motorsport pair of Viktor Andersson and Marco Butti in the points.

It was a tough session for the CUPRA team. After just scraping through into Q2 with the tenth to 12th fastest times, the team repeated the feat in Q2, which means with the tenth fastest time, Marco Butti has secured the reversed grid pole position for Sunday’s race, where he’ll start ahead of the other BRC Racing Team Hyundai of Alex Ley, while team-mates Adam Shepherd and Andersson are locked into 11th and 12th for both races.

The fastest of the Tenerife Trophy contenders was Victor Weyrich in 14th, but with a three-place grid penalty hanging over him after a false start at Paul Ricard, he’ll start behind the Trophy leader Giacomo Prandelli in the race.

The Diamond Trophy pole-sitter was René Polvsen on his TCR Europe debut, with the Danish driver qualifying in 23rd overall of the 28-car field.

The first race is scheduled for 16:55 CEST.