Norbert Michelisz ended the Audi domination of the Portimão TCR event in style, claiming pole position for the weekend’s opening race after setting the fastest time in the two-stage Qualifying session in his BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse Elantra. Tom Coronel was the highest-placed TCR Europe competitor, with his Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS set to start Race 1 from seventh on the grid. The Cyan Racing Lynk & Co 03 of Santiago Urrutia is on provisional pole for Race 2.

In the first stage of Qualifying, Mikel Azcona was the first driver to set a competitive lap time (1:52.233) ahead of Norbert Michelisz (1:52.444) and the first of the TCR Europe drivers Mikael Karlsson (1:54.221). On the next lap, Nicola Baldan went quicker than Karlsson to go P3 with a time of 1:53.566 before Frédéric Vervisch (1:51.595), Néstor Girolami (1:51.615) and then Rob Huff (1:51.479) all went faster.

John Filippi then went P5 with a lap of 1:51.796 to head the TCR Europe contenders before being pipped by Kobe Pauwels with a 1:51.695 which put the young Belgian driver into P4 overall. That became P5 when Michelisz set a time of 1:51.575 with a little under eight minutes of the twenty-minute session remaining. Vervisch, meanwhile, had improved his best lap with a 1:51.485 but was still in P2 behind Huff.

At one point, only three cars were on track while the rest were in the pits for fresh tyres. They began to emerge with around five minutes remaining, setting up a nervous final few laps. With just over a minute of the session left, Vervisch went fastest with a lap of 1:51.021 ahead of Azcona (1:51.320). Ma Qing Hua went P6 with a time of 1:51.650 while Tom Coronel set a 1:51.737 which would see him through to Q2 – one of three TCR Europe drivers to make the cut, along with Pauwels and Filippi. Just under eight-tenths covered the top 11 cars.

Going through to the second stage of Qualifying were Vervisch, Azcona, Huff, Michelisz, Girolami, Ma Qing Hua, Pauwels, Yann Ehrlacher, Santiago Urrutia, Coronel, Filippi and Thed Björk.

In the ten-minute sprint of Q2, it was Michelisz who set the first quick lap (1:51.297) with Azcona in P2 (1:51.332) and Huff P3 (1:51.342). Coronel headed the TCR Europe drivers after the first flying lap with a time of 1:51.686, with Pauwels (1:51.721) ahead of Filippi (1:51.841).

Coronel improved on his next lap with a 1:51.604, as did Pauwels (1:51.708), but Filippi couldn’t improve his time and so would finish the session in P12 overall and third in the TCR Europe points places. The chequered flag brought the session to an end with no further improvements in lap times and so it will be Norbert Michelisz who will start this afternoon’s Race 1 from pole position with his teammate Mikel Azcona alongside. In the reversed-grid Race 2 on Sunday, it will be Santiago Urrutia on pole with Kobe Pauwels sharing the front row of the grid.

Race 1 is scheduled to start at 14.20 local time with Race 2 at 11.30 tomorrow morning. Both races will be streamed live on tcr-series.tv

Qualifying - overall

1. Norbert Michelisz (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse, Hyundai Elantra N)  1:51.297

2. Mikel Azcona (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse, Hyundai Elantra N) 1:51.332

3. Rob Huff (Audi Sport Team Comtoyou, Audi RS 3 LMS)  1:51.342

Qualifying – TCR Europe

1. Tom Coronel (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)  1:51.604

2. Kobe Pauwels (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)  1:51.704

3. John Filippi (Comtoyou, Audi RS 3 LMS)  1:51.841

TCR Europe Championship points

1. Tom Coronel 10pts; 2. Kobe Pauwels 7pts; 3. John Filippi 5pts; 4. Viktor Davidovski 4pts; 5. Dušan Borkovič 3pts.