Nathanaël Berthon on pole in Slovakia

This time a priori, it's the right one. Deprived of the front row at the Nürburgring due to a penalty, Nathanaël Berthon this time won the two poles of the WTCR round in Slovakia on the track. The Comtoyou Racing driver was fastest in the twenty-minute Q1 session to secure pole for Race 1 and the first points of the weekend. He then finished at the head of the third segment session (Q3) which gave him pole for the third race.

Derrière Berthon en Q1 Nicky Catsburg a réalisé un bon tour pour se hisser à la deuxième place au volant de sa Hyundai et son futur adversaire en Pure ETCR Jean-Karl Vernay (Alfa Romeo) of Team Mulsanne took third position. Gilles Magnus for Comtoyou and the Hyundai of Gabriele Tarquini finished the top 5.

Some big names in the championship failed to make it into the top 12. Among them, Tiago Monteiro (Honda) in 13th position, Yvan Muller (Cyan Racing Lynk & Co) in 14th place and championship leader Yann Ehrlacher, disappointed to have to settle for 15th time.

"We will start the three races in 15th position”, did he declare. “It's obviously not the best place. We just need to take some good points. It is what it is, and we have to live with it. We absolutely have to find rhythm somewhere.”

The 10-minute Q2 session was interrupted by a red flag after Attila Tassi crashed his Münnich Motorsport Honda and hit the rail. The session resumed with six minutes on the clock. Catsburg found the rhythm again, positioning itself in first place in this second segment to climb into Q3 and compete for pole position, with a time of 2m09.586s. The other qualifiers for Q3 were Magnus, Norbert Michelisz, Berthon and Tom Coronel.

During Q3, Berthon started in third position. After being fastest in Q1 and during the second free practice session earlier in the day, the Frenchman set the best time, with an advantage of 0,283 seconds over Michelisz.

Nicky Catsburg took third place, behind Michelisz and ahead of Coronel and Magnus.

Race 1 of WTCR Race of Slovakia takes place on Sunday morning at 9:15 a.m. local time.

The complete qualifying rankings.