Dudukalo sets pole position at Kazan Ring

The Audi and SEAT/Cupra cars topped the TCR Russia Qualifying session at Kazan Ring.
Lukoil Racing’s Aleksey Dudukalo claimed his first pole position of the season at the wheel of his Audi RS3 LMS, beating the Rail Pro Team Cupra of Anton Badoev and the Rumos-AMG Motorsport SEAT León of Lev Tolkachev.
Dudukalo’s teammate Ivan Lukashevich qualified fourth after his switch from the SEAT DSG to the Audi; he was followed by the reigning champion and current points leader Dmitri Bragin (TAIF Motorsport Audi) and Grigoriy Burlutskiy (Carville Racing SEAT DSG). The first of the LADA Vesta cars was Vladimir Sheshenin’s in seventh position.
It was a close session with the top ten covered by only three tenths of a second.
Bragin opened hostilities with a lap of 1:27.477 that remained the fastest until halfway through the session, while a bunch of drivers improved and got closer to him.
With ten minutes to go in the 20-minute session, Tolkachev jumped on top with a lap of 1:27.323, but soon afterwards Dudukalo improved with a 1:27.252 that was not to be beaten.
During the final moments, Badoev moved up to second with a lap of 1:27.317, beating Tolkachev by six thousandths, then Bragin improved his time (1:27.456) but not his fourth position and eventually he was demoted to fifth when Lukashevich posted the fourth fastest lap of 1:27.435.
The first race will start tomorrow at 11:45 local time (10:45 CET); live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.