Franco Girolami has claimed his fourth career pole position in a wet qualifying session at the Salzburgring in a close fight with fellow Argentinian racer Ignacio Montenegro, with the reigning TCR South America champion securing the outside of the front row for tomorrow’s race.

Girolami and Montenegro had gone head to head through both the earlier practice sessions as well, and their duel continued into qualifying with the two drivers swapping best times in the two sessions.

Monlau Motorsport CUPRA driver Girolami came out on top with a time of 1:33.199, just over a tenth of a second clear of Montenegro’s ALM Motorsport Honda.

Viktor Andersson was their closest challenger, with the MA:GP Lynk & Co driver also briefly on top of the time sheets early in Q2.

Santiago Concepción managed to improve late in the session to go from 11^th to fourth in only his second TCR race weekend, outqualifying former championship leader Aurélien Comte, who put his SP Compétition CUPRA fifth.

At the bottom end of the top ten, Comte’s team-mate Giovanni Scamardi would qualify tenth, and so secured the pole for the reversed grid Race 2.

Just missing the top ten cut was Girolami’s team-mate Viktor Davidovski, who’d also brought out the red flag at the beginning of Q1 when he knocked the tyre stacks at the Turn 1 chicane onto the track, and Zolder pole-sitter Nicola Baldan, who struggled to 12^th in the wet conditions.

Missing out on taking part in Q2 was TCR Europe newcomer Sandro Soubek, whose Audi RS 3 was 13^th fastest in the first part of qualifying.

The first race is scheduled to take place tomorrow morning at 09:25 CEST with live streaming on the TCR TV YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/TCRTV