Ivan Lukaschevich on pole at Smolensk Ring
After making an impact on TCR Russia already on his maiden appearance in the season opener at Fort Grozny, Lukoil Racing’s Ivan Lukashevich set pole position today at the Smolensk Ring.
Lukashevich drove his SEAT León DSG to set the fastest lap of 1:32.581, beating the reigning champion Dmitry Bragin’s Audi RS3 LMS (1:32.674) and the Volkswagen Golf GTI DSG of Roman Golikov (1:33.132), the point leader after the first event. Grigory Burlutskiy made an impressive first appearance in the series at the wheel of another SEAT DSG – this one run by Carville Racing – qualifying in fourth position with the time of 1:33.217. Lukashevich’s teammate Aleksey Dudukalo posted the fifth fastest lap in his Audi (1:33.629), followed by Anton Badoev’s SEAT SEQ (1:33.323) and Klim Gavrilov’s Audi (1:33.325).
The LADA Sport cars struggled to stay on the pace: Mikhail Grachev qualified in 12th position (1:34.051), seventh thousandths of a second faster than Kirill Ladygin. Their teammate Vladimir Sheshenin was sidelined for the whole session by a technical issue.
The first race will start tomorrow at 11:45 local time (10:45 CET).
