CIRCUIT PAUL RICARD (23 April, 2021) – Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing has secured an incredibly close pole position for this weekend’s Hankook 12H CIRCUIT PAUL RICARD, the Swiss team pipping nearest challenger AC Motorsport by just 0.067s. 

The opening stages of the session saw the Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR (#112, Fabian Danz / Marlon Menden / Rhys Lloyd / Yannick Mettler) throw an impressive gauntlet down of 2m 16.216s around the 5.842km Circuit Paul Ricard. Though this was later bested by Mathieu Detry in the AC Motorsport Audi RS3 LMS (#188, Stéphane Perrin / Mathieu Detry / David Dermont), who became the first driver in the session to dip below 2m 16s, Autorama’s Yannick Mettler went on to set a 2m 15.801s inside the final five minutes, re-taking the TCE Häring Pole Position for the reigning Overall TCE Teams’ champion in the process.  

“That was a lot of fun and the car was really amazing,” Yannick Mettler explained to radiolemans.com’s Lukas Gajewski. “I got a good lap in and that was good enough for pole, so I’m really happy with that. It’s probably not the most important thing to start at the front of an endurance event, but it’s always nice to have a clear view ahead. I think for the race, the key will be to look after the [car] as there are some harsh kerbs here, and we saw yesterday in Free Practice that things can break quickly.”

The second Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR (#1, Constantin Kletzer / Emil Heyerdahl / Jérôme Ogay / Yannick Mettler) will start 3rd, despite Emil Heyerdahl appearing to run out of fuel on his cooling down lap. In another close finish, the Swiss Volkswagen was just 0.054s quicker than the Tictap Totcar Sport CUPRA TCR (#123, Jorge Belloc Diaz / Jorge Belloc Ruiz / Álvaro Rodríguez Sastre), which also challenged for pole position in the early going.

Behind the RC2 Junior Team by Cabra Racing CUPRA Leon Competición TCR (#108, Rubén Fernández / Victor Fernández / Felipe Fernández), Hankook 12H MUGELLO TCE winner Red Camel-Jordans.nl endured a difficult session. As well as struggling with setup, the CUPRA TCR (#101, Ivo Breukers / Rik Breukers / Luc Breukers) was docked several lap times owing to track limit violations. 

In TCX, the CWS Engineering Ginetta G55 (#278, Colin White / Jean-Francois Brunot / JM Littman) will start on class pole position ahead of the returning Nordschleife Racing Ligier JS2 R (#226, Guillaume Roman / Daniel Waszczinski / Thierry Chkondali).

On-track action continues this evening at Circuit Paul Ricard with two hours of Night Practice, set to take place between 20.00 hrs and 22.00 hrs local time. The action will be live with commentary from radiolemans.com on the official 24H SERIES YouTube channel. Regular updates will also be published on Twitter (@24HSeries), Facebook (24H Series) and Instagram (24H Series). Further information can be found HERE.