Aleksey Dudukalo claims critical pole position at N Ring

Aleksey Dudukalo has claimed his first pole position of the 2020 TCR Russia season at the N Ring circuit.
Dudukalo’s pole was a vital recovery, as the Audi driver was set to qualify outside the top ten with just a minute to go in Q1, before he went ninth fastest on his final run, and in doing so pushed the Hyundai of Klim Gavrilov, also a championship contender, out of the top ten.
Q1 was topped by Pavel Kalmanovich in his CUPRA, who put in a stunning last lap of 1:19.727 to be the only driver under the 1:20 mark, demoting the LUKOIL Hyundai of Andrej Maslennikov to second, with Kalmanovich’s AG Team teammate Rustam Fatkhutdinov third fastest.
In Q2, Maslennikov put down the first benchmark time of 1:21.099, but this was quickly improved on by both Mikhail Mityaev’s LADA, and then Dmitry Bragin’s Hyundai. Kirill Ladygin was only able to set a competitive run on his second timed lap, which at that point grabbed him provisional pole, going two-tenths of a second quicker than Bragin with a time of 1:20.625.
The field all came in and changed tyres and went out again for their second runs, and the times tumbled, with the top four cars breaking the 1:20 barrier, led by Dudukalo, who was just under a tenth of a second faster than Kalmanovich, with Bragin back up to third.
Dudukalo’s teammate Ivan Lukashevich, who has claimed three pole positions this year in his Hyundai, had to settle for fourth, with Mityaev the best-placed of the LADA drivers in fifth.
Championship leader Ladygin didn’t improve on his second run, and dropped to eighth in the final order.
Sunday’s races will be streamed live at www.tcr-series.com: Race 1 at 13:20 local time (12:20 CEST), Race 2 at 17:10 local time (16:10 CEST). 

Qualifying
1:19.767 Aleksey Dudukalo (LUKOIL Racing Team, Audi RS 3 LMS)
1:19.864 Pavel Kalmanovich (AG Team, CUPRA)
1:19.877 Dmitry Bragin (STC TAIF Motorsport, Hyundai i30 N)
1:19.989 Ivan Lukaschevich (LUKOIL Racing Team, Hyundai i30 N)
1:20.100 Mikhail Mityaev (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport)

Championship points
1. Kirill Ladygin 163 pts; 2. Aleksey Dudukalo 131; 3. Klim Gavrilov 124


Picture: TCR Russia