Marco Butti has claimed his first career pole position in TCR Europe, securing the Pole Position Award by TR Watches by putting his MM Motorsport Honda Civic Type R fastest by two-tenths of a second in a greasy qualifying session at the Hockenheimring. The Spa race winner will start ahead of countryman Nicola Baldan, with Max Hart securing his career-best qualifying result in third.

Light rain began falling just at the start of Q1, with Junui Park setting the early pace in his Solite Indigo Racing Hyundai, before a flurry of improvements near the end of the first half.

It was then Felice Jelmini who took over in his PMA Motorsport Audi, and stayed on top until the end of Q1 with a time of 1:47.711, the fastest time seen so far this weekend. Andersson was able to escape from the drop zone and then put points leader Teddy Clairet at risk. It was then a set of improvements from ALM Motorsport’s Mikael Karlsson and also Teddy’s brother and team-mate Jimmy Clairet which dropped him out of the top 12.

Teddy stayed out to try one final time to break into the top 12, but had to settle for 14th in the session, which is where he’ll start both of this weekend’s races.

Karlsson was dropped out of the top 12 following a late improvement by Monlau Motorsport’s Eric Gené, who went 11th fastest.

At the start of Q2, Marco Butti set the benchmark on his first run with a time of 1:47.886, just ahead of Baldan and Hart, while only nine cars managed to set valid times, as Felice Jelmini, Jimmy Clairet, and Santiago Concepción’s laps were all deleted due to track limits violations at Turn 1. The rain began to fall harder, meaning everyone who set a lap time already was unable to improve, while Jimmy Clairet and Concepción were both fighting to set a time that would get them in the all-important top ten as Jelmini remained in the pits.

Despite setting a time seven seconds off the pace, Jimmy Clairet scraped into the top ten in ninth, bumping Concepción and Jelmini to P11 and P12, while Felipe Fernández’s RC2 Racing Team Honda ended up tenth fastest in the session and so will start tomorrow’s Race 2 from pole.

The first race of the weekend takes place at 12:20 CEST this afternoon, and will be streamed live on the TCR TV YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@TCRTV