Mike Halder on pole position at Oschersleben
Mike Halder and his Honda Civic FK7 run by Team Honda ADAC Sachsen won the first pole position of the season in the TCR Germany.
Changeable weather conditions affected today’s Qualifying session at Oschersleben, and with the tarmac drying up, it was a matter of choosing the right time to set a quick lap.
In Q1 guest driver Petr Fulín posted an impressive fastest lap of 1:44.781 in his Cupra TCR with only two minutes left on the clock. Anti Buri’s Audi RS3 LMS was the second fastest car (1:45.252) followed by Benjamin Leuchter’s Volkswagen Golf GTI (1:45.721) and the Audi of Niels Langeveld (1:45.966). Simon Reicher (Audi – 1:46.050) and Florian Thoma (VW – 1:46.086) were fifth and sixth respectively. The first Honda was Dominik Fugel’s in seventh position (1:46.147) ahead of the Opel Astra cars of Luke Wankmüller (1:46.258) and Harald Proczyk (1:46.285). The Peugeot 308 of Lukas Niedertscheider (1:46.333) rounded off the top ten.
Halder – who had been the fastest in both the Practice sessions on a dry track – and Luca Engstler (VW) managed to claim the last two spots for Q2, eliminating Jasmin Preisig’s Opel by one mere tenth.
In Q2 lap times were dramatically improved as clocked ticked out. Buri, Thoma and Leuchter provisionally sat on top of the timesheet, until Halder completed his last lap in 1:40.468 that gave him pole position. Thoma (1:41.037) qualified second ahead of Leuchter (1:41.447) and Proczyk (1:42.183). Engstler posted the 10th fastest lap and won pole position on the reverse grid for Race 2, while Fulín could not do better than 11th and Niedertscheider did not post a valid time.
Race 1 will start Saturday at 11:55 (live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv).
