Thed Björk has taken his first pole position in the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour at the Macau season finale, and in doing so has retaken second place in the championship closing to within ten points of the leader Norbert Michelisz, who will start the race from fourth in a session which was red-flagged four times.
The session started in damp conditions with light rain falling, but with the high temperatures the track began to dry really quickly. Q1 was stopped after just ten minutes with Santiago Urrutia’s Lynk & Co ground to a stop at Moorish Hill with an electrical issue, which sidelined the Uruguayan for the rest of the day. After that Ma Qing Hua and Néstor Girolami continued to swap fastest laps on wet tyres, while others switched to slicks. But before the next run of improvements could be made, the Evolve Racing Hyundai of Lo Sze Ho spun out at the Melco hairpin causing a second red flag; at that point most of the top 12 were made up of TCR China and TCR Asia drivers, with the exception of Mikel Azcona, Girolami, and Ma. When the session resumed, there were a flurry of improvements, with the Cyan Racing drivers launching to the top of the time sheets with Ma leading Björk and Yann Ehrlacher, while the GOAT Racing Honda cars also showed great pace with Marco Butti fourth and Dušan Borković sixth. Rob Huff was down in 15th after hitting traffic on his run, but the 11-time Macau winner failed to improve after the red flag was shown once more when the 326 Racing Team Audi of Wu Yi Fan crashed out at San Francisco bend. With only a minute left on the clock, the session wouldn’t be resumed, with Huff set to start the two races from 15th on the grid.
In Q2, the Lynk & Co cars were looking quick, but 19-year-old Butti was on a charge and set the best sector times before he crashed at Paiol and suffered significant damage to the front of his Honda Civic. The session was red flagged before anyone had set a lap. When it was resumed, Azcona put down a time of 2:29.839 as the first marker and looked set for pole, but Björk was the only driver who improved on his second run, going just over two-thousandths of a second quicker thanks to a tow from team-mate Ehrlacher who was third with Michelisz fourth. Girolami qualified in fifth ahead of Guerrieri.
In the TCR China contingent, Hyundai N’s Martin Cao Hong Wei took pole and has also taken the lead of the TCR China standings, while team-mate Andy Yan Cheuk Wai set a last-minute flyer to go tenth and secure the overall pole position for Race 2.
Zhang Zhen Dong also extended his lead in TCR Asia after qualifying 14th overall, with his Z.Speed N Hyundai team-mate and title rival Max Hart 16th.
The first race is scheduled for 12:40 local time tomorrow (05:40 CET).
Macau - Qualifying
2:29.816 – Thed Björk (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, Lynk & Co 03 FL)
2:29.839 – Mikel Azcona (BRC Hyundai Squadra Corse, Hyundai Elantra N)
2:29.934 – Yann Ehrlacher (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, Lynk & Co 03 FL)
Championship points – TCR World Tour
- N. Michelisz, 280 pts; 2. T. Björk, 270; 3. E. Guerrieri 266
Championship points – TCR China
- M. Cao H.W., 355 pts; 2. J. Zhang Z.Q., 350; 3. M. Xie X.Z., 278
Championship points – TCR Asia
- Zhang Z.D., 336 pts; 2. M. Hart, 316; 3. Hwang D. 265
Further information and images @ www.fiatcrworldtour.com
Schedule
Saturday - Race 1, 12:40 (05:40 CET)
Sunday - Race 2, 11:00 (04:00 CET)
Both races will be streamed live HERE
Picture: WSC/Jun Qian Motorsport
