ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt has claimed pole position for this afternoon’s first race at Spa-Francorchamps, setting a late flyer in his Honda Civic to deprive series leader Aurélien Comte of his first pole position, while Comte’s main championship rival Franco Girolami will start from 11^th place after losing all his lap times.

Qualifying started in slightly damp conditions as light rain started to descend on the Belgian circuit moments before the start.

The two Monlau Motorsport CUPRAs of Franco Girolami and Eric Gené would leave it late to set their times in the first session, coming in for a heat cycle front-to-rear tyre change early on, before Girolami returned to the pits one more time while Gené opted to run a set of wet rears. Gené went out and set the fifth quickest time, while Girolami immediately topped the times in Q1, just before the red flag was called when Gené slid off at Eau Rouge and damaged the front of his CUPRA Leon VZ.

This meant the two drivers who didn’t progress were the Baldan Group by Comtoyou drivers Jimmy Clairet and Nicola Baldan, who had both had laps deleted during the session, and had no chance to set a valid lap time with the red flag.

In Q2, only 11 cars took to the circuit with Gené’s car still on its way back to the paddock on the recovery vehicle. Girolami set a first target time of 2:50.075, before that was flagged for deletion and then removed by the stewards for a track limits violation.

Comte then took over at the top with a 2:50.044, before Felipe Fernández briefly moved ahead with a time of 2:49.837 before the Spanish driver’s lap was also deleted due to a track limits violation.

The final improvement came from Volt, whose 2:49.892 put him on pole just a tenth ahead of Comte, while Rubén Fernández would qualify in third, over a second behind.

The session was a disaster for Girolami, after all of his laps were deleted due to exceeding tracks limits, which puts the Argentinian 11^th on the grid for both of the races.

The top qualifying car from the team is Viktor Davidovski in tenth, who also had his best lap deleted which would have put him fourth. He’ll therefore start the second race from pole position.

Following the points allocated for qualifying, Comte extends his lead to eight points over Girolami, while Volt moves up to third in the standings ahead of his team-mate Ignacio Montenegro.

The first race is scheduled for 18:20 CEST this afternoon.