BBR has taken its third TCE pole position of the season at the 24H PORTIMAO following a tough fight with reigning Overall TCE Teams’ champion, Wolf-Power Racing.
Current TCR Teams’ standings leader BBR, which has entered a two-car line-up for the first-time this season, had been trailing the Wolf-Power Racing Audi RS3 LMS TCR (#116, Jasmin Preisig / Ivars Vallers / Calle Bergman / Charles Dawson) as TCE division qualifying went into its final 15-minute session.
Fast laps from both Chariya Nuya in the BBR CUPRA Leon Competición TCR (#158, Chariya Nuya / Munkong Sathienthirakul / Sandy Stuvik / Grant Supaphongs / Nattanid Leewattanavalagul) and Kantasak Kusiri in the sister CUPRA TCR (#159, Kantadhee Kusiri / Kantasak Kusiri / Anusorn Asiralertsir / Tanart Sathienthirakul / Pasarit Promsombat) meant the Thai team briefly held a front-row lockout.
The duo were eventually split by a late hot lap from Charles Dawson in the Wolf Power Audi, though the British driver was unable to beat BBR’s 1m 54.931s average laptime around the 4.652km Autódromo Internacional do Algarve.
The returning AC Motorsport Audi RS 3 LMS, which boasts a brand-new, all-Hong-Kong driver line-up this weekend (#188, David Lau / Tommy Ku / Shaun Thong / Andy Yan), will start 4th in TCR, despite a troubled session. The Belgian team was served a drive-through penalty after a track limit infringement during free practice, then a second when the drive-through was not served during Q1!
Viper Niza Racing CUPRA TCR (#165, Douglas Khoo / Dominic Ang / Melvin Moh / Gilbert Ang) makes its return to CREVENTIC competition for the first time since 2019 this weekend, and made a solid start with the 5th fastest average time across all three sessions. The Malaysian-entered CUPRA though forced a brief red flag at the end of Q3 when Melvin Moh ran wide and into the gravel at turn eight.
The Lestrup Racing Team Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR (#110, Mats Olsson / Peter Fahlström / Stefan Nilsson / Patric Olovsson) will hope to repeat the Swedish team’s podium finish last time out at Hockenheim from 6th on the TCR grid, while 700 Miles (#106, Thierry Chkondali / Marc Girard / Bruno Derossi / Jordan Mougenot), which last competed with CREVENTIC at the same event in 2020, rounds out the TCR grid in 7th with its Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR.