Guillaume Mondron and Giacomo Altoè claimed victory in the TCR Benelux Qualifying Race at Zandvoort, sharing the wheel of a Delahaye Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI.
Aurélien Comte in the Peugeot 308 run by DG Sport Compétition dominated the first half of the 60-minute race; the Frenchman took the lead at the start and managed to keep behind Mondron until the mandatory pit stop, while Jaap van Lagen moved up to third in the Certainty Racing Audi RS3 LMS.
Pepe Oriola (Ferry Monster Autosport SEAT León) lost third place on lap 13, when he ran wide in a corner and dropped to sixth. Tom Coronel (Boutsen-Ginion Racing Honda Civic) pitted twice with flat tyres, once at the end of the warm-up lap and again on lap 12.
After the pit stop, Altoè was leading with a gap of 3 seconds ahead of Comte’s co-driver Kevin Abbring. The young Italian was able to increase his pace and stretched his leading margin to 15 seconds, claiming his first ever TCR victory.
Abbring was classified second ahead of van Lagen’s co-driver Simon Reicher. Dénis Dupont (Team WRT SEAT) lost fourth place on the last lap because of a flat tyre.
Action will resume tomorrow at Zandvoort, with four sprint races. Race 1/2 will start at 9:00, Race 3/4 at 16:00; live streaming at www.tcr-series.tv. The pole sitters will be Stéphane Lémeret (Boutsen-Ginion Honda) in Race 1 and van Lagen in Race 2