Mityaev places LADA on pole for TCR Russia’s opening race

Mikhail Mityaev and his LADA Vesta Sport will start the first race of the 2021 TCR Russia season from the pole position at the Smolensk Ring. Alongside the LADA Sport Rosneft driver will be placed the Carville Racing Hyundai i30 N of Grigory Burlutskyi. Mityaev’s teammate and reigning champion Kirill Ladygin qualified in third position ahead of the Lukoil Racing Team’s Hyundai i30 N cars of Andrej Maslennikov and Ivan Lukashevich.
The Qualifying session started with Pavel Kalmanovich’s lap of 1:32.175, but his time was not enough to stay at front with his CUPRA; in fact, he was soon demoted by Ladygin’s first competitive time of 1:31.860 that provisionally placed him on top of the timesheet. This didn’t last for long either, as Mityaev clocked a new provisional fastest lap of 1:31.359. During the last minutes of the session, Mityaev was able to improve again to 1:30.869 that was worth the pole position.
The last improvements came from Burlutskyi (1:31.305), who moved up into P2, repeating his Qualifying result from last year, and Ladygin (1:31.373) who will start from P3 alongside Maslennikov who was only one thousandth of a second slower.
Lukashevich secured the fifth position on the grid, alongside the Audi RS 3 LMS driven by his new teammate Egor Orudzhev. Newcomer Egor Fokin qualified a brilliant seventh in the private LADA Vesta Sport run by A.M.G. Motorsport, while former champion Dmitry Bragin couldn’t place his TAIF Motorsport Hyundai i30 N higher than a disappointing tenth.
Live streaming of both races will be on Sunday at www.tcr-series.com; Race 1 at 11:45, Race 2 at 16:15 local times (10:45 and 15:15 CEST).

Smolensk Ring - Qualifying
1:30.869 Mikhail Mityaev (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport)
1:31.305 Grigory Burlutskyi (Carville Racing, Hyundai i30 N)
1:31.373 Kirill Ladygin (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport)
1:31.374 Andrej Maslennikov (Lukoil Racing Team, Hyundai i30 N)
1:31.411 Ivan Lukashevich (Lukoil Racing Team, Hyundai i30 N)

Picture: Grigory Golyshev