Cyan Racing’s Yann Ehrlacher continued his pace-setting form on the streets of Vila Real, as he scored pole position in qualifying for the FIA TCR World Tour races on the fast city circuit.
Ehrlacher had earlier topped both of the day’s practice sessions in the Portuguese heat, and the Frenchman continued his pace in Q1, lapping below 2 minutes for the first time in the day with an effort of 1:59.958 to lay down the gauntlet in a red-flag interrupted session.
In fact, it was a Lynk & Co 1-2-3 in Q1, as Santiago Urrutia was second, with form that the Uruguayan would continue into Q2, ending up second overall just under two tenths of a second shy of his team-mate.
But it was Ehrlacher who claimed his first pole of the season with a lap of 1:59.547, extending his championship lead in the process.
GOAT Racing’s Esteban Guerrieri qualified his Honda in third, 0.198 seconds adrift, ahead of BRC Racing’s Mikel Azcona in fourth as the leading Hyundai.
Aurélien Comte was fifth fastest in the sole running SP Compétition CUPRA in Q2, after John Filippi withdrew before the event and the other car of Manuel Fernandes Jr crashed heavily at the end of Q1.
Norbert Michelisz, who still holds the lap record at the circuit, put his Hyundai in sixth, almost a second and a half off the pace.
MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson was an impressive seventh in his Lynk & Co, ahead of Cyan Racing’s Thed Björk in eighth.
The top ten was completed by Cyan Racing’s Ma Qing Hua and GOAT Racing’s Ignacio Montenegro, giving the latter the reverse-grid pole position for race two.
GOAT Racing’s Marco Butti failed to post a meaningful time in Q2, whilst Fernandes didn’t take part due to the significant damage to his CUPRA in his end-of-Q1 crash, which also brought out the red flags in the closing seconds and prompted barrier repairs to be required.
Fuel pump problems for Néstor Girolami saw the BRC Racing driver fail to turn the wheel at all in the session, leaving the Argentine to start from the back of the grid for both races.
Dušan Borković was the cause of two of the three red flags in Q1 – firstly the GOAT Racing driver had a driveshaft failure at turn 11 and stopped on track, but after getting back to the pits for repairs, he later lost control under braking and hit the barriers. The Serbian will thus start from 14th for both races, behind the wildcard Hyundai of Daniel Teixeira.
Race one is scheduled to get underway at 12:00 WEST (12:00 BST, 13:00 CEST) on Sunday.
Q2 results
| POS | NO | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 168 |  |
Yann EHRLACHER | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 5 | 1:59.547 | – |
| 2 | 112 |  |
Santiago URRUTIA | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 7 | 1:59.727 | 0.180 |
| 3 | 186 |  |
Esteban GUERRIERI | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 6 | 1:59.745 | 0.198 |
| 4 | 196 |  |
Mikel AZCONA | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 6 | 2:00.178 | 0.631 |
| 5 | 107 | |
Aurélien COMTE | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 6 | 2:00.526 | 0.979 |
| 6 | 105 |  |
Norbert MICHELISZ | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 3 | 2:00.958 | 1.411 |
| 7 | 10 |  |
Viktor ANDERSSON | MA:GP | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 5 | 2:01.856 | 2.309 |
| 8 | 111 | |
Thed BJÖRK | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 6 | 2:01.963 | 2.416 |
| 9 | 155 |  |
MA Qing Hua | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 6 | 2:02.070 | 2.523 |
| 10 | 123 | |
Ignacio MONTENEGRO | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 6 | 2:02.270 | 2.723 |
| 11 | 11 |  |
Marco BUTTI | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 4 | 2:07.136 | 7.589 |
| 12 | 77 |  |
Manuel FERNANDES JR | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 0 | No time | N/A |
Q1 results
| POS | NO | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 168 | |
Yann EHRLACHER | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 9 | 1:59.958 | – |
| 2 | 112 | |
Santiago URRUTIA | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 8 | 2:00.592 | 0.634 |
| 3 | 111 | |
Thed BJÖRK | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 8 | 2:00.651 | 0.693 |
| 4 | 107 | |
Aurélien COMTE | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 12 | 2:01.012 | 1.054 |
| 5 | 155 | |
MA Qing Hua | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 9 | 2:01.121 | 1.163 |
| 6 | 186 | |
Esteban GUERRIERI | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 10 | 2:01.184 | 1.226 |
| 7 | 196 | |
Mikel AZCONA | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 11 | 2:01.238 | 1.280 |
| 8 | 105 | |
Norbert MICHELISZ | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 7 | 2:01.338 | 1.380 |
| 9 | 123 | |
Ignacio MONTENEGRO | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 12 | 2:02.100 | 2.142 |
| 10 | 10 | |
Viktor ANDERSSON | MA:GP | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 11 | 2:02.107 | 2.149 |
| 11 | 11 | |
Marco BUTTI | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 11 | 2:02.497 | 2.539 |
| 12 | 77 | |
Manuel FERNANDES JR | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 12 | 2:02.712 | 2.754 |
| 13 | 59 | |
Daniel TEIXEIRA | JT59 Racing Team | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 10 | 2:03.737 | 3.779 |
| 14 | 62 |  |
Dušan BORKOVIĆ | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 9 | 2:04.040 | 4.082 |
| 15 | 14 |  |
Michel FERNANDES | J. Santos Competição | Peugeot 308 TCR | 8 | 2:15.357 | 15.399 |
| 16 | 129 | |
Néstor GIROLAMI | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 0 | No time | N/A |
| 17 | 127 | |
John FILIPPI | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 0 | No time | N/A |