WestCoast Racing’s Rob Huff secured pole position on his début in the TCR International Series, beating team-mate Kevin Gleason to pole position around the Circuito da Guia in Macau.
Huff continued his form around the former Portuguese colony to take pole ahead of Gleason by a comfortable 1.631 seconds, having topped all sessions bar Q1 earlier on.
Gleason, for his part, had come closest to toppling Brit Huff, having ended Q1 as the fastest driver. However Huff put his Macau experience to good use to usurp the American, who had never previously raced around the demanding street circuit before.
Target Competition’s Stefano Comini was third fastest, gaining the upper hand over title rival Pepe Oriola, who could only manage fifth behind Craft-Bamboo Racing team-mate Jordi Gené.
Sixth fastest was WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli, who caused the only red flag period in Q2 when he spun his Honda Civic across the track at turn 18 after bouncing off the tyre barriers, blocking the track five minutes into the second part of qualifying.
Jordi Oriola was the second fastest Target Competition driver, despite also collecting the tyre barriers with less than a minute to go in the session.
Russian driver Sergey Afanasyev was eight quickest, with Target Competition’s Andrea Belicchi and Asia Racing Team’s Rodolfo Ávila completing the top ten, the latter being the fastest of the TCR Asia Series competitors.
Uniquely for the season finale, however, Ávila will not start race two from pole position as the reverse grid rule has been dropped for the event.
Just missing out on the top ten were Target Competition’s Francisco Mora in 11th and the leading Liqui Moly Team Engstler Volkswagen of Lorenzo Veglia in 12th.
Fellow Macau driver Henry Ho was the first driver to miss out on entry into Q2, putting his PAS Macau Racing Team Honda in 13th on the grid, ahead of Engstler’s Mikhail Grachev in 14th.
Q1 was red flagged for around 15 minutes with six minutes left to run when WestCoast Racing’s Sunny Wong spun at Paiol and was collected by Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Frank Yu as he attempted to get going again.
Problems for Brits James Nash and Dan Wells prevented either from posting a time in the session, with the former venturing out but stopping his Proteam Racing Ford on track in Q1. Wells failed to even leave the pits due to a technical problem on his Campos Racing Opel.
Q2 times
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 27 | Rob HUFF |  |
West Coast Racing | Honda Civic TCR | 4 | 2:31.522 | 0.000 |
| 2 | 24 | Kevin GLEASON |  |
West Coast Racing | Honda Civic TCR | 5 | 2:33.153 | 1.631 |
| 3 | 25 | Stefano COMINI |  |
Target Competition | SEAT León Racer | 5 | 2:33.498 | 1.976 |
| 4 | 88 | Jordi GENÉ |  |
Team Craft-Bamboo LUKOIL | SEAT León Racer | 5 | 2:33.528 | 2.006 |
| 5 | 74 | Pepe ORIOLA | |
Team Craft-Bamboo LUKOIL | SEAT León Racer | 5 | 2:33.619 | 2.097 |
| 6 | 10 | Gianni MORBIDELLI |  |
West Coast Racing | Honda Civic TCR | 2 | 2:34.665 | 3.143 |
| 7 | 21 | Jordi ORIOLA | |
Target Competition | SEAT León Racer | 5 | 2:35.207 | 3.685 |
| 8 | 77 | Sergey AFANASYEV |  |
Team Craft-Bamboo LUKOIL | SEAT León Racer | 5 | 2:35.207 | 3.685 |
| 9 | 33 | Andrea BELICCHI | |
Target Competition | SEAT León Racer | 4 | 2:35.625 | 4.103 |
| 10 | 30 | Rodolfo AVILA |  |
Asia Racing Team | SEAT León Racer | 5 | 2:36.702 | 5.180 |
| 11 | 7 | Lorenzo VEGLIA | |
Liqui Moly Team Engstler | Volkswagen Golf TCR | 4 | 2:36.726 | 5.204 |
| 12 | 50 | Francisco MORA |  |
Target Competition | SEAT León Racer | 3 | 2:38.597 | 7.075 |