Marco Butti scored his maiden TCR Europe pole position in qualifying at the Hockenheimring, edging out fellow practice pace-setter Nicola Baldan by two tenths of a second.
Butti had emerged as the fastest driver overall on Friday, having topped the opening practice session of the weekend, before going fourth in second practice later in the day.
The MM Motorsport driver continued that pace into a damp Saturday in Germany, going fourth fastest in Q1 before setting the overall pace in Q2, with a lap of 1 minute 47.886 seconds, a tenth slower than his Q1 time, being good enough to deny Baldan pole.
Just seconds earlier, Baldan had put in the best Q2 time, but it was Butti who was quicker by almost a quarter of a second, putting his Honda on pole ahead of the Aikoa Racing Audi.
Target Competition’s Max Hart earned his best-ever qualifying result in third, a further tenth and a half adrift in the best of the Hyundais.
Solite Indigo Racing’s Junui Park put his Hyundai in fourth, having consistently been the best of the South Korean team’s drivers in the session.
Monlau Motorsport’s Eric Gené was the best of the CUPRAs in fifth, having scraped into Q2 in the last seconds, ahead of the PMA Motorsport Audi of Nicolas Taylor in sixth.
MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson was seventh, having almost missed out on progressing to Q2 until a late improvement saw him scrape through from Q1 in 12th.
ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt put his Honda in eighth, ahead of the sole Team Clairet Audi in Q2 of Jimmy Clairet in ninth. Clairet had earlier had all of his Q2 times deleted due to track limit exceedances and with the rain intensifying, was only able to lap almost seven seconds off the pace to scrape into the top ten.
RC2 Racing’s Felipe Fernández completed the top ten, giving the Spaniard the reverse-grid pole position for Sunday’s second race, despite also having had most of his Q2 times deleted due to track limits, where he will have Clairet alongside.
His RC2 team-mate Santiago Concepción was 11th, whilst Q1 pace-setter Felice Jelmini was only 12th, both drivers losing lap times due to track limits, the latter unable to post a representative time at all after losing all his fast laps.
Series returnee Mikael Karlsson just missed out on getting through to Q2 0.022 seconds and put his ALM Motorsport Honda in 13th, ahead of championship leader Teddy Clairet, with the maximum 40 kg of compensation weight, in 14th, having been dropped down the order in the closing seconds of Q1.
Race one gets underway at 12:20 CEST (11:20 BST).
Q2 result
| POS | NO | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 111 |  |
Marco BUTTI | MM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 4 | 1:47.886 | – |
| 2 | 8 | |
Nicola BALDAN | Aikoa Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 4 | 1:48.105 | 0.219 |
| 3 | 69 |  |
Max HART | Target Srl | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 4 | 1:48.243 | 0.357 |
| 4 | 87 |  |
Junui PARK | Solite Indigo Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 3 | 1:48.308 | 0.422 |
| 5 | 28 |  |
Eric GENÉ Casanovas | Monlau Motorsport | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 3 | 1:48.344 | 0.458 |
| 6 | 17 |  |
Nicolas TAYLOR | PMA Motorsport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 3 | 1:48.565 | 0.679 |
| 7 | 10 |  |
Viktor ANDERSSON | MA:GP | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 3 | 1:48.665 | 0.779 |
| 8 | 27 |  |
Ruben VOLT | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 3 | 1:48.739 | 0.853 |
| 9 | 21 |  |
Jimmy CLAIRET | Team Clairet Sport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 6 | 1:54.874 | 6.988 |
| 10 | 19 | |
Felipe FERNÁNDEZ Gil | Auto Club RC2 Valles | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 6 | 1:55.227 | 7.341 |
| 11 | 33 | |
Santiago CONCEPCIÓN | Auto Club RC2 Valles | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 6 | 1:57.029 | 9.143 |
| 12 | 44 | |
Felice JELMINI | PMA Motorsport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 3 | 41:35.811 | 39:47.925 |
Q1 result
| POS | NO | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 44 | |
Felice JELMINI | PMA Motorsport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 6 | 1:47.711 | – |
| 2 | 21 | |
Jimmy CLAIRET | Team Clairet Sport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 8 | 1:47.748 | 0.037 |
| 3 | 19 | |
Felipe FERNÁNDEZ Gil | Auto Club RC2 Valles | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 8 | 1:47.891 | 0.180 |
| 4 | 111 | |
Marco BUTTI | MM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 4 | 1:47.932 | 0.221 |
| 5 | 87 | |
Junui PARK | Solite Indigo Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 8 | 1:47.974 | 0.263 |
| 6 | 27 | |
Ruben VOLT | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 7 | 1:47.987 | 0.276 |
| 7 | 33 | |
Santiago CONCEPCIÓN | Auto Club RC2 Valles | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 10 | 1:48.037 | 0.326 |
| 8 | 69 | |
Max HART | Target Srl | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 8 | 1:48.055 | 0.344 |
| 9 | 17 | |
Nicolas TAYLOR | PMA Motorsport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 9 | 1:48.154 | 0.443 |
| 10 | 8 | |
Nicola BALDAN | Aikoa Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 9 | 1:48.214 | 0.503 |
| 11 | 28 | |
Eric GENÉ Casanovas | Monlau Motorsport | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 10 | 1:48.354 | 0.643 |
| 12 | 10 | |
Viktor ANDERSSON | MA:GP | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 10 | 1:48.380 | 0.669 |
| 13 | 48 | |
Mikael KARLSSON | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 11 | 1:48.402 | 0.691 |
| 14 | 20 | |
Teddy CLAIRET | Team Clairet Sport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 11 | 1:48.431 | 0.720 |
| 15 | 4 | |
Julien BRICHÉ | JSB Compétition | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 11 | 1:48.518 | 0.807 |
| 16 | 246 |  |
Jenson BRICKLEY | Monlau Motorsport | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 11 | 1:48.524 | 0.813 |
| 17 | 80 | |
Filippo BARBERI | Aikoa Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 10 | 1:48.577 | 0.866 |
| 18 | 97 | |
Junesung PARK | Solite Indigo Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 10 | 1:48.871 | 1.160 |
| 19 | 45 | |
Victor FERNÁNDEZ Gil | Auto Club RC2 Valles | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 10 | 1:49.470 | 1.759 |
| 20 | 98 | |
Pierre-Arnaud NAVARRO | JSB Compétition | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 11 | 1:49.571 | 1.860 |
| 21 | 6 | |
Jean-Laurent NAVARRO | JSB Compétition | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 10 | 1:49.603 | 1.892 |