» WTCR: Girolami claims pole in Hungary

Néstor Girolami has given the Münnich Motorsport Honda team its second pole position of the FIA World Touring Car Cup season ahead of Saturday’s opening race at the Hungaroring.

Fastest in Friday afternoon’s practice session and a pace-setter in this morning second practice session, the Argentine put in a late flying lap two minutes before the end of qualifying to knock long-time leader Yvan Muller’s Cyan Racing Lynk & Co entry from top spot.

Girolami’s teammate Esteban Guerrieri – who chalked up the first pole position and victory of the 2019 season at the previous Race of Morocco round – finished the session third-fastest behind Muller.

Aurélien Panis was an outstanding fourth-fastest in his Comtoyou Racing Cupra, with Muller’s Lynk & Co. stablemates Yann Ehrlacher and early championship leader Thed Björk claiming fifth and sixth respectively. Continuing its strong start to its first season of racing, the Chinese Lynk & Co. brand had three of its four cars qualify inside the top-ten, with only Andy Priaulx (15th) missing out.

After VW’s dire showing last time out in Marrakech, former rallycross champion Johan Kristoffersson was at least able to unlock some one-lap pace in his Golf GTI which he hustled to seventh-fastest ahead of the Audi pairing of WRT’s Jean-Karl Vernay (8th) and Comtoyou Racing’s Frédéric Vervisch (10th).

The championship-winning Hyundais had a tougher time with their heavier base weights, with Augusto Farfus the sole representative in the top-ten for the BRC Racing operation. The Brazilian was just three-hundredths of a second faster than teammates Gabriele Tarquini and crowd favourite Norbert Michelisz, who will start 13th and 14th respectively.

As was the case last time out in Morocco, the qualifying session was a tightly-fought affair with less than one second covering the top eighteen qualifiers around the Hungaroring’s 4.3-kilometre layout. With the exception of the Team Mulsanne’s Alfa Romeo Giuliettas, every customer car brand represented in this year’s field got at least one of its cars lapping inside this one-second barrier – the lead Alfa of Kevin Ceccon was 1.073 seconds off the lead pace and the Italian qualified 19th-fastest.

The 12-lap opening race of the WTCR Race of Hungary will start at 15:15 local time (GMT +2).

2019 FIA WTCR Race of Hungary – Race 1 Qualifying Results
	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap
1.	Néstor Girolami	Münnich Motorsport	1:52.586
2.	Yvan Muller	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	1:52.757	+ 0.171
3.	Esteban Guerrieri	Münnich Motorsport	1:52.893	+ 0.307
4.	Aurélien Panis	Comtoyou Team DHL Cupra Racing	1:52.955	+ 0.369
5.	Yann Ehrlacher	Cyan Performance Lynk & Co	1:53.042	+ 0.456
6.	Thed Björk	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	1:53.065	+ 0.476
7.	Johan Kristoffersson	SLR Volkswagen	1:53.158	+ 0.572
8.	Jean-Karl Vernay	Leopard Racing Team Audi Sport	1:53.217	+ 0.631
9.	Augusto Farfus	BRC Hyundai N LUKOIL Racing Team	1:53.267	+ 0.681
10.	Frédéric Vervisch	Comtoyou Team Audi Sport	1:53.274	+ 0.688
11.	Daniel Haglöf	PWR Racing	1:53.286	+ 0.700
12.	Mehdi Bennani	SLR VW Motorsport	1:53.289	+ 0.703
13.	Norbert Michelisz	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	1:53.290	+ 0.704
14.	Gabriele Tarquini	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	1:53.298	+ 0.712
15.	Andy Priaulx	Cyan Performance Lynk & Co	1:53.397	+ 0.811
16.	Mikel Azcona	PWR Racing	1:53.486	+ 0.900
17.	Rob Huff	SLR VW Motorsport	1:53.496	+ 0.910
18.	Attila Tassi	KCMG	1:53.548	+ 0.962
19.	Kevin Ceccon	Team Mulsanne	1:53.659	+ 1.073
20.	Nicky Catsburg	BRC Hyundai N LUKOIL Racing Team	1:53.690	+ 1.104
21.	Ma Qing Hua	Team Mulsanne	1:53.780	+ 1.194
22.	Niels Langeveld	Comtoyou Team Audi Sport	1:53.845	+ 1.259
23.	Tiago Monteiro	KCMG	1:53.903	+ 1.317
24.	Gordon Shedden	Leopard Racing Team Audi Sport	1:54.048	+ 1.462
25.	Benjamin Leuchter	SLR Volkswagen	1:54.078	+ 1.492
26.	Tom Coronel	Comtoyou Team DHL Cupra Racing	1:54.213	+ 1.627
27.	Tamás Tenke (WC)	Zengő Motorsport	1:57.067	+ 4.481