The MONLAU COMPETICION Cupra TCR DSG (#107, Stuart Hall / Christopher Kemp / David Tinn / Tom Black) has secured the final TCE division pole position of this year’s 24H SERIES at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
Former LMGTE Am World Endurance Champion Stuart Hall posted a 2m 19.304s in the closing 40 seconds of the session to push the TOPCAR sport by Bas Koeten Racing Cupra TCR DSG (#131, Fabian Danz / Antti Buri / Kari-Pekka Laaksonen / Ronny Jost), which had held the top spot for much of the session, back down to 2nd.
This result marks the second time this year that MONLAU COMPETICION will start a 24H TCE division race from pole position, the Spanish team having done so at Mugello. Impressively, Stuart Hall posted the fastest time in TCE qualifying despite missing all of Free Practice.
“This is my practice!” Hall explained to radiolemans.com’s Nick Daman. “It’s the first time I’ve ever driven a front-wheel drive car this year – I only jumped out of a Porsche GT3 R last week! – so it’s all very new and I’m still learning in the job.
“It’s really nice to be on pole. The team has done a mega job. It’s just a case of tailoring myself to the car. And you only have one or two laps on the car, usually one. So I took a step back and figured I could piece one together. And I did. That was nice and there’s plenty more to come!”
Despite competing for the top spot for most of the opening quarter of the TCE qualifying session, the Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR (#112, Jérôme Ogay / Constantin Kletzer / Roberto Ferri / Alberto Vescovi / Yannick Mettler) slipped back down the grid in the closing stages and will now start 3rd. Last time out, the Swiss team secured the 24H SERIES Europe championship in the TCE division, and this week is in contention for the ‘Continents’ title as well.
American stalwart Atlanta Speedwerks (#126, Brian Henderson / Taylor Hagler / Barry Boes / Todd Lamb) will start 4th on its 24H SERIES debut at COTA, the Honda Civic FK7 TCR having lapped just over one tenth of the AC Motorsport Audi RS3 LMS (#188, Stephane Perrin / Vincent Radermecker / Matthew Taskinen / William Neal). The second Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR (#114, Lukas Desserich / Stefan Tanner / Yannick Mettler / Christoph Ulrich) will start 6th.
Having won the inaugural TCR SPA 500 just over one month ago, the Red Camel-Jordans.nl Cupra TCR DSG (#101, Ivo Breukers / Steven Liquorish / Jerimy Daniel / Jean-Francois Hevey) is the final TCR entrant at COTA, and will start 7th just ahead of the Sorg Rennsport BMW M240i Racing Cup (#851, Benito Tagle / Michael Nielsen / Frank S. Woody III / Johan Schwartz)
This year’s 24H COTA USA starts tomorrow afternoon at 11.30 hrs local time, and will run uninterrupted until the overnight intervention starts at 22.30 hrs.