Felipe Fernández claims pole position at Spa

RC2 Racing’s Felipe Fernández took pole position at Spa-Francorchamps for the second year in a row in qualifying for the TCR Europe series on Friday.

Fernández took his first-ever pole in the series at the Belgian circuit last year, and the Spaniard was on strong form again in 2025 as he went from seventh quickest in Q1 to fastest of all in Q2, with a lap of 2 minutes 27.184 seconds to post a new qualifying lap record, 1.6 seconds quicker than the benchmark set back in 2018.

Monlau Motorsport’s Eric Gené was his closest challenger, the CUPRA driver just 0.050 seconds behind, whilst the second RC2 Honda of Santiago Concepción made it a Spanish 1-2-3 in third, the Thursday pace-setter being 0.136 seconds slower than Fernández in qualifying.

However, Gené carries a five-place grid penalty he received at the previous event, meaning Concepción will start race one from second in an all-RC2 front row, whilst Gené will drop to seventh.

ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt qualified in fourth, ahead of the best of the Hyundais – that of Solite Indigo Racing’s Junesung Park – in fifth.

MM Motorsport’s Marco Butti was sixth, with his team having worked hard overnight to repair his Honda following a sizeable crash at Eau Rouge on Thursday which saw the car end up on its roof.

Team Clairet Sport duo Jimmy and Teddy Clairet were seventh and eighth fastest respectively in their Audi machinery, briefly holding the top times in Q2 as drivers effectively only got one shot at pole in the session due to the long lap time.

ALM’s Sten-Dorian Piirimägi and MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson completed the top ten in their Honda and Lynk & Co machinery respectively, the only other drivers within a second of the pace. It means Andersson will start Saturday’s reverse-grid second race from pole position, with series débutant Piirimägi alongside.

Solite Indigo Racing’s Junui Park was 11^th, with Aikoa Racing’s Nicola Baldan in 12^th.

JSB Compétition’s Julien Briché just missed out on progressing beyond Q1 by 0.063 seconds and will start from 13^th for both races, ahead of PMA Motorsport’s Nicolas Taylor in 14^th.

The sole Target Competition Hyundai of Max Hart was 15^th – the Irishman had earlier posted a time of 2:28.010 in Q1 which would have been good enough to get into Q2, but it was deleted due to track limits exceedances.

Race one takes place at 12:25 CEST (11:25 BST) on Saturday.

Q2 result

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	19		Felipe FERNÁNDEZ Gil	Auto Club RC2 Valles	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	4	2:27.184	–
2	28		Eric GENÉ Casanovas	Monlau Motorsport	CUPRA Leon VZ TCR	4	2:27.234	0.050
3	33		Santiago CONCEPCIÓN	Auto Club RC2 Valles	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	4	2:27.320	0.136
4	27		Ruben VOLT	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	3	2:27.335	0.151
5	97		Junesung PARK	Solite Indigo Racing	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	3	2:27.510	0.326
6	111		Marco BUTTI	MM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	4	2:27.659	0.475
7	21		Jimmy CLAIRET	Team Clairet Sport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	2:27.722	0.538
8	20		Teddy CLAIRET	Team Clairet Sport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	2:27.741	0.557
9	237		Sten-Dorian PIIRIMÄGI	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	4	2:27.852	0.668
10	10		Viktor ANDERSSON	MA:GP	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	4	2:28.118	0.934
11	87		Junui PARK	Solite Indigo Racing	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	4	2:28.247	1.063
12	8		Nicola BALDAN	Aikoa Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	4	2:28.516	1.332

Q1 result

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	33		Santiago CONCEPCIÓN	Auto Club RC2 Valles	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	7	2:27.710	–
2	20		Teddy CLAIRET	Team Clairet Sport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	7	2:27.779	0.069
3	21		Jimmy CLAIRET	Team Clairet Sport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	7	2:27.929	0.219
4	87		Junui PARK	Solite Indigo Racing	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	7	2:28.005	0.295
5	97		Junesung PARK	Solite Indigo Racing	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	6	2:28.023	0.313
6	28		Eric GENÉ Casanovas	Monlau Motorsport	CUPRA Leon VZ TCR	7	2:28.048	0.338
7	19		Felipe FERNÁNDEZ Gil	Auto Club RC2 Valles	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	5	2:28.069	0.359
8	111		Marco BUTTI	MM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	7	2:28.087	0.377
9	237		Sten-Dorian PIIRIMÄGI	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	6	2:28.145	0.435
10	10		Viktor ANDERSSON	MA:GP	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	7	2:28.445	0.735
11	27		Ruben VOLT	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	6	2:28.521	0.811
12	8		Nicola BALDAN	Aikoa Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	7	2:28.533	0.823
13	4		Julien BRICHÉ	JSB Compétition	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	7	2:28.596	0.886
14	17		Nicolas TAYLOR	PMA Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	7	2:28.726	1.016
15	69		Max HART	Target Srl	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	7	2:29.161	1.451
16	246		Jenson BRICKLEY	Monlau Motorsport	CUPRA Leon VZ TCR	7	2:29.226	1.516
17	80		Filippo BARBERI	Aikoa Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	7	2:29.857	2.147
18	45		Victor FERNÁNDEZ Gil	Auto Club RC2 Valles	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	7	2:30.768	3.058
19	98		Pierre-Arnaud NAVARRO	JSB Compétition	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	7	2:30.985	3.275
20	6		Jean-Laurent NAVARRO	JSB Compétition	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	5	2:31.062	3.352
21	79		Sven KARUSE	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	7	2:36.279	8.569
22	44		Felice JELMINI	PMA Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	0	No time	N/A