Ignacio Montenegro kept his title hopes alive by grabbing his first pole position in the TCR Europe series at Valencia. This was despite losing his final lap time and , just under a tenth of a second ahead of championship leader and fellow Argentinian Franco Girolami.

The ALM Motorsport driver followed up his sensational pace from practice yesterday by leading much of the first part of qualifying, before he was pipped at the final moments by his Honda team-mate Ruben Volt.

It was a scramble to make it through into the top 12, and while title contenders Girolami and Aurélien Comte looked safely set to progress throughout the 20-minute session, a last minute flurry of improvements that saw some regulars miss out on progressing into Q2.

First, wild card entry Nicolas Taylor’s PMA Motorsport Audi was knocked out by Comte’s SP Compétition team-mate Giovanni Scamardi, who in turn was dropped by an improvement from GOAT Racing’s Rubén Fernández. Then a last-minute improvement by Santiago Concepción saw Fernández also fall out of the top 12.

In Q2, Montenegro immediately set the benchmark with a time of 1:40.606, while GIrolami and Comte joined him in second and third positions by the five-minute mark.

In the second half of the session, quick charges came from both Nicola Baldan’s Audi and Concepción’s Honda, who moved up to second position and split the championship-fighting contingent.

Everyone came out for one final run, and while Montenegro looked set to improve, he went wide at Turn 1 and his lap was marked for deletion from the stewards and he had no time to set another.

This left him vulnerable, but his first lap time was good enough to keep pole, while Girolami closed to within 0.073 seconds in his CUPRA, but ultimate had to settle for second.

MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson set a final flyer to place his Lynk & Co third on the grid, and put himself on target to extend his run of podium finishes this aftermnoon.

Comte was able to set a late improvement and moved back up to fifth, but as the third best of the title contenders he loses ground in the championship and is now nine points behind Girolami heading into this afternoon’s race, though will start ahead of his two rivals in Race 2 tomorrow morning.

Girolami’s team-mate Viktor Davidovski finished the session tenth quickest and will start from pole position for Race 2.

The first race of the weekend gets underway at 16:40 CEST and will be streamed live on the TCR Europe series’ Facebook page.