Kevin Ceccon claims pole for Race 3 at Suzuka
After securing second place on the grid for tomorrow’s WTCR Race 1 at Suzuka, his best Qualifying result so far, Kevin Ceccon did even better in the second Qualifying session, as he placed his Team Mulsanne Alfa Romeo Giulietta on pole position for Sunday’s Race 2.
Ceccon ranked second in Q1, only 21 thousandths of a second behind Gabriele Tarquini’s fastest lap of 2:11.686, then topped the Q2 part with an impressive fastest lap of 2:11.045 that was nearly half-a-second faster than Aurélien Comte’s second fastest time of 2:11.502.
In Q3, the young Italian did even better and established a new lap record for TCR car at 2:10.742 inflicting a huge gap of seven tenths to Tarquini’s Hyundai that will start from the outside of the front row with the time of 2:11.441.
Comte, who had set pole position for Race 1 in the first Qualifying, ranked third (2:11.635), followed by Yann Ehrlacher (2:11.746) and Mehdi Bennani (2:13.608) who were the only drivers allowed to Q3.
The front row of the top-ten reverse grid for Race 2 will see Pepe Oriola on pole position and Rob Huff alongside him, as they qualified tenth and ninth respectively in Q2.
The four points for second in Q3 meant that Tarquini extended his leading margin in the standings to 11 points ahead of his fellow Hyundai colleagues Thed Björk and Yvan Muller who will start 13th and 12th in both races 2 and 3.
Muller had to pit in Q2 to replace a tyre after making contact with Esteban Guerrieri.
Races 2 and 3 will take place on Sunday at 11:05 and 12:30 local time (03:05 and 04:30 CET).
