PERGUSA (9 October, 2020) – The JR Motorsport BMW M3 E92 (#703, Ted van Vliet / Willem Meijer) has taken its first TCE pole position of the 2020 24H SERIES season at the inaugural COPPA FLORIO 12H Sicily. Willem Meijer was on the pace immediately aboard the BMW, lapping the 4.983km Autodromo di Pergusa in the low 1m 44s before planting a scintillating lap of 1m 43.751s to put the top spot in qualifying well out of reach of the TCR runners.

JR Motorsport becomes the fifth different TCE pole sitter of 2020 in the process.

“I really enjoyed the lap,” Willem Meijer explained to CREVENTIC. “A couple of times I thought, ‘woah, that was on the limit!’ But the car is amazing, the feeling is great, and the team did a great job. I enjoyed that [session] a lot and I’m happy.

“When you hit the high kerbs, it’s really tricky. You can go really fast through the chicanes, but it’s also challenging because if you go too fast through the first one, you lose time through the second one, so you have to find a good balance between the corners. But if you find it, this is a really fun track!”

The Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR (#112, Miklas Born / Fabian Danz / Constantin Kletzer) will line up alongside JR Motorsport on the front row, having qualified fastest of the TCR runners. The reigning Overall TCE Teams’ champion in the 24H SERIES Europe currently leads the way in the TCE standings once again having taken victory this year in Portimão and Hockenheim.

Despite an off-track moment for Luc Breukers, the Red Camel-Jordans.nl CUPRA TCR (#101, Ivo Breukers / Luc Breukers) will line up 3rd on the grid tomorrow for part one of the COPPA FLORIO 12H Sicily. The Dutch team will share the second row with the returning Vmax-Engineering Opel Astra TCR (#105, Shane Lewis / Charles Espenlaub), which lines up 4th. The Opel had been steadily improving its laptimes during the closing stages of qualifying with Charles Espenlaub at the wheel, but finished its session at the side of track on the exit of turn 10 after an off-track moment. The position of the TCR car just off the racing line was enough to warrant a red flag with just four minutes of the session remaining.

The AC Motorsport Audi RS3 LMS (#188, James Kaye / Ricky Coomber / Marcus Menden) rounded out the overall top five in TCE qualifying at the Autodromo di Pergusa.

Part one of the inaugural COPPA FLORO 12H Sicily gets underway at 11.00 hrs local time tomorrow, and the event will run uninterrupted until the chequered flag is waved at 17.00 hrs. Following the 24H SERIES’ customary overnight intervention, part two of the 12-hour event will get underway at 11 hrs on Sunday 11 October. Live streaming of the race in HD quality will be available on our official website and the 24H SERIES YouTube channel. Regular updates will be published on Twitter (@24HSeries), Facebook (24H Series) and Instagram (24H Series). Further information can be found HERE.