John Filippi claimed a first pole in touring cars in qualifying for the TCR Europe series at Circuit Paul Ricard, with the Target Competition driver putting his Hyundai 0.034 seconds clear of Mehdi Bennani’s Audi.
Filippi had earlier been fifth fastest in Q1, but was able to find more than six tenths of a second between the sessions as the Corsican flew to a maiden pole position in Q2.
Bennani, making his TCR Europe début this weekend, was second quickest, putting the Audi’s aerodynamic advantage to good use on the French circuit’s long straights to be less than half a tenth of a second behind.
Brutal Fish Racing’s Dan Lloyd was the best Honda driver in third, sharing the second row of the grid with Argentine Néstor Girolami, who is standing in for Viktor Davidovski at PSS Racing this weekend.
Team Clairet Sport Peugeot duo Jimmy and Teddy Clairet were fifth and sixth fastest respectively, around half a second off the pace. However, Jimmy will be given a three-place grid penalty for race one due to having set his fastest time in Friday’s second practice session under yellow flags.
Another set of siblings occupy the next row of the grid, with Jessica and Andreas Bäckman in seventh and eighth quickest in their Target Competition Hyundais.
The Swedish duo had earlier topped Q1, but they were unable to find any further pace in Q2 and actually posted slightly slower lap times.
Completing the top ten were Comtoyou Racing’s Sami Taoufik and Profi Car Team Halder’s Mike Halder, with the duo thus starting from the front row of the grid for Sunday’s reverse-grid second race, which sees the top ten Q2 times flipped.
Last year’s championship runner-up, Julien Briché, just missed out on the reverse grid pole and was 11th in his Peugeot, the first driver over a second off the pace in Q2.
Slovak Mat’o Homola was 12th in his BRC Racing-run Hyundai, although he has been given a five-place grid penalty for track limit infringements and will line-up from 17th for race one. His team-mate, Dániel Nagy, missed out on Q2 altogether and was 13th fastest.
Two other big names missing out on progressing beyond Q1 were Brutal Fish Racing’s Pepe Oriola, just 14th in Q1 after being knocked out of the top twelve in the closing seconds, and Boutsen Ginion Racing’s Tom Coronel, who was 1.2 seconds off the pace in the first part of qualifying.
Michelle Halder was unable to match her brother’s pace in Q1, qualifying her Honda in 17th for both races.
Race one is scheduled to get underway at 12:50 CEST (11:50 BST).
Q2 results
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 27 | John FILIPPI |  |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 2 | 2:11.709 | 0.000 |
| 2 | 250 | Mehdi BENNANI |  |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 3 | 2:11.743 | 0.034 |
| 3 | 123 | Daniel LLOYD |  |
Brutal Fish Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 3 | 2:11.840 | 0.131 |
| 4 | 29 | Néstor GIROLAMI |  |
PSS Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 2 | 2:12.114 | 0.405 |
| 5 | 21 | Jimmy CLAIRET | |
Team Clairet Sport | Peugeot 308 TCR | 3 | 2:12.165 | 0.456 |
| 6 | 20 | Teddy CLAIRET | |
Team Clairet Sport | Peugeot 308 TCR | 3 | 2:12.217 | 0.508 |
| 7 | 26 | Jessica BÄCKMAN |  |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 3 | 2:12.266 | 0.557 |
| 8 | 19 | Andreas BÄCKMAN | |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 3 | 2:12.271 | 0.562 |
| 9 | 25 | Sami TAOUFIK | |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 3 | 2:12.596 | 0.887 |
| 10 | 7 | Mike HALDER |  |
Profi Car Team Halder | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 4 | 2:12.652 | 0.943 |
| 11 | 24 | Julien BRICHÉ | |
JSB Compétition | Peugeot 308 TCR | 5 | 2:12.722 | 1.013 |
| 12 | 70 | Mat’o HOMOLA |  |
BRC Racing Team | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 4 | 2:13.057 | 1.348 |
Q1 results
| POS | NO | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 26 | Jessica BÄCKMAN | |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 6 | 2:11.958 | 0.000 |
| 2 | 19 | Andreas BÄCKMAN | |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 7 | 2:12.112 | 0.154 |
| 3 | 29 | Néstor GIROLAMI | |
PSS Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 6 | 2:12.229 | 0.271 |
| 4 | 123 | Daniel LLOYD | |
Brutal Fish Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 6 | 2:12.258 | 0.300 |
| 5 | 27 | John FILIPPI | |
Target Competition | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 6 | 2:12.341 | 0.383 |
| 6 | 250 | Mehdi BENNANI | |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 6 | 2:12.446 | 0.488 |
| 7 | 20 | Teddy CLAIRET | |
Team Clairet Sport | Peugeot 308 TCR | 6 | 2:12.510 | 0.552 |
| 8 | 24 | Julien BRICHÉ | |
JSB Compétition | Peugeot 308 TCR | 7 | 2:12.592 | 0.634 |
| 9 | 21 | Jimmy CLAIRET | |
Team Clairet Sport | Peugeot 308 TCR | 6 | 2:12.646 | 0.688 |
| 10 | 70 | Mat’o HOMOLA | |
BRC Racing Team | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 9 | 2:12.868 | 0.910 |
| 11 | 25 | Sami TAOUFIK | |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 8 | 2:12.870 | 0.912 |
| 12 | 7 | Mike HALDER | |
Profi Car Team Halder | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 5 | 2:12.874 | 0.916 |
| 13 | 99 | Dániel NAGY |  |
BRC Racing Team | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 9 | 2:12.932 | 0.974 |
| 14 | 74 | Pepe ORIOLA |  |
Brutal Fish Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 7 | 2:13.029 | 1.071 |
| 15 | 31 | Tom CORONEL |  |
Boutsen Ginion Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 6 | 2:13.182 | 1.224 |
| 16 | 8 | Nicolas BAERT |  |
Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 7 | 2:13.605 | 1.647 |
| 17 | 53 | Michelle HALDER | |
Profi Car Team Halder | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 7 | 2:13.736 | 1.778 |
| 18 | 4 | Florian BRICHÉ | |
JSB Compétition | Peugeot 308 TCR | 8 | 2:14.142 | 2.184 |
| 19 | 66 | Gilles COLOMBANI | |
Team Clairet Sport | Peugeot 308 TCR | 6 | 2:14.518 | 2.560 |
| 20 | 81 | Stéphane VENTAJA | |
Team Clairet Sport | Peugeot 308 TCR | 8 | 2:14.600 | 2.642 |
| 21 | 16 | Evgenii LEONOV |  |
Volcano Motorsport | CUPRA TCR | 6 | 2:14.813 | 2.855 |
| 22 | 17 | Martin RYBA | |
Brutal Fish Racing Team | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 8 | 2:15.156 | 3.198 |
| 23 | 38 | Lewis KENT | |
Essex & Kent Motorsport | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 8 | 2:15.327 | 3.369 |
| 24 | 6 | Jean Laurent NAVARRO | |
JSB Compétition | Peugeot 308 TCR | 8 | 2:15.955 | 3.997 |