Farfus leads BMW front row in Japan

Farfus had been quickest through both of the morning practice sessions and carried that form into qualifying, moving to the top of the sheets with his first flying lap and never looking under threat.

His pole time of 1:37.040 was 0.227 seconds quicker than his BMW Schitzer teammate Muller's best effort.

"We started from a very good base," said Farfus. "We'll just try to keep the pace and see how everything shapes up tomorrow. The track suits our car quite well but the main problem is the brakes - everybody is having problems trying to stop the car.

"The track itself is quite low-grip and we expected to get a better grip level during qualifying. It happened, but not as much as we expected. The tyres also weqar quite quickly, so the race will be tough for everyone."

SEAT's Gabriele Tarquini was third on the timesheets but will drop to eighth as a result of a five-place grid penalty carried over from the previous round at Monza. His demotion means that teammate Tiago Monteiro will start from third alongside Chevrolet's Alain Menu.

Rickard Rydell (SEAT) and Independent driver Stefano D'Aste (Proteam BMW) were fifth and sixth ahead of Rob Huff (Chevrolet) and Tarquini, with Felix Porteiro (BMW) and points leader Yvan Muller (SEAT) rounding out the top 10.

Pos  Driver              Car                  Time
 1.  Augusto Farfus      BMW 320si            1:37.040
 2.  Jorg Muller         BMW 320si            1:37.267  + 0.227
 3.  Gabriele Tarquini   SEAT Leon TDI        1:37.272  + 0.232
 4.  Tiago Monteiro      SEAT Leon TDI        1:37.354  + 0.314
 5.  Alain Menu          Chevrolet Lacetti    1:37.422  + 0.382
 6.  Rickard Rydell      SEAT Leon TDI        1:37.458  + 0.418
 7.  Stefano D'Aste      BMW 320si            1:37.534  + 0.494
 8.  Robert Huff         Chevrolet Lacetti    1:37.610  + 0.570
 9.  Felix Porteiro      BMW 320si            1:37.668  + 0.628
10.  Yvan Muller         SEAT Leon TDI        1:37.704  + 0.664
11.  Andy Priaulx        BMW 320si            1:37.740  + 0.700
12.  Sergio Hernandez    BMW 320si            1:37.770  + 0.730
13.  Jordi Gene          SEAT Leon TDI        1:37.773  + 0.733
14.  James Thompson      Honda Accord Euro R  1:37.887  + 0.847
15.  Takayuki Aoki       BMW 320si            1:37.937  + 0.897
16.  Franz Engstler      BMW 320si            1:38.041  + 1.001
17.  Tom Coronel         SEAT Leon            1:38.146  + 1.106
18.  Alessandro Zanardi  BMW 320si            1:38.189  + 1.149
19.  Nicola Larini       Chevrolet Lacetti    1:38.322  + 1.282
20.  Norbert Michelisz   SEAT Leon            1:38.421  + 1.381
21.  Manabu Orido        Chevrolet Lacetti    1:38.543  + 1.503
22.  Jaap Van Lagen      Lada 110             1:39.141  + 2.101
23.  Yukinori Taniguchi  Honda Accord Euro R  1:39.832  + 2.792
24.  Matthew Marsh       BMW 320si            1:39.914  + 2.874
25.  Andrey Romanov      BMW 320si            1:39.920  + 2.880
26.  Kirill Ladygin      Lada 110             1:40.278  + 3.238
27.  Ibrahim Okyay       BMW 320si            1:40.858  + 3.818
28.  Masaki Kano         BMW 320i             1:41.559  + 4.519
29.  Melvin Choo         BMW 320si            1:42.547  + 5.507