Tavano claims his first pole of the season at Imola

TCR Italy’s reigning champion Salvatore Tavano claimed his first pole position in the current season at Imola. The Scuderia del Girasole’s driver emerged as the fastest in the dying moments of the 30-minute Qualifying, posting two consecutive best laps and demoting the provisional pole sitter Nicola Baldan. The latter lost one more place when Estonian youngster Ruben Volt set the second fastest lap, his best Qualifying result in TCR Italy so far. Volt was imitated by Michele Imberti and Dušan Kouřil who qualified fourth and fifth.
Mattias Vahtel posted the first significant time of 1:51.838 that was soon bettered by Anti Buri’s 1:51.818 and then by Baldan’s 1:51.322. Moments later, Tavano moved into second with a lap of 1:51.521.
With seven minutes left on the clock, Volt’s jumped on top of the timesheet with a lap of 1:51.289, his teammate Vahtel was set to improve that mark, but his attempt was spoiled by a Full Course Yellow. The green flag was waved again with four minutes to go that provided a great deal of improvements.
Tavano was clocked at 1:51.081 to take a provisional lead, while Volt improved again to 1:51.135 but remained second; then Baldan moved into first with a lap of 1:50.934, but Tavano answered with a 1:50.650 and retook the lead. Imberti, who had had a 1:50.684 disallowed for track limit infringements, moved into P3 with a lap of 1:51.033. 
But that was not the end yet, as under the chequered flag Tavano was able to cut a few hundredths more going down to 1:50.592 that secured him the pole position for today’s Race 1, while Volt retook second with a lap of 1:50.700, demoting Baldan to third and Imberti to fourth, while Kouřil qualified a brilliant fifth. 
Antti Buri, the current leader of the standings, was classified ninth, two positions behind his closest competitor Kevin Ceccon who is now 17 points behind the Finn but will start from P2 of the top-eight reversed grid for Sunday’s Race 2 alongside the pole sitter Matteo Poloni. Baldan has recovered 7 points from Buri, reducing his gap to 25 points, while Tavano lies in fourth position 9 further points adrift. The fifth competitor in the title fight, Eric Brigliadori, had a disappointing qualifying on his first outing in a Hyundai i30 N; a broken wheel hub sidelined him for most of the session and he qualified 20^th.
Newcomers Sandro Soubek from Austrian and Sergio López from Venezuela posted the 10^th and 11^th fastest laps respectively, while Sabatino Di Mare topped the DSG class in a brilliant 12^th position overall.
The live streaming of the first race will be this afternoon at 17:00 CEST on www.tcr-series.com.

Imola – Qualifying 
1:50.592 Salvatore Tavano (Scuderia del Girasole, CUPRA Leon Competición)
1:50.700 Ruben Volt (ALM Racing, Honda Civic Type R Fk7)
1:50.934 Nicola Baldan (Target Competition, Hyundai i30 N)
1:51.033 Michele Imberti (Élite Motorsport, CUPRA Leon Competición)
1:51.085 Dušan Kouřil (K2 Engineering, Hyundai i30 N)

Championship points
1. A. Buri 262 pts; 2. K. Ceccon 245; 3. N, Baldan 237 

Picture: ACI Sport