Yvan Muller claims pole in Brazil
Reigning champion Yvan Muller will begin his World Touring Car title defence from pole position at Curitiba tomorrow after producing the fastest lap of the weekend so far in the final qualifying session
The WTCC has adopted the Formula 1-style knock-out session where the top 10 cars go through to a 10-minute Q2 shootout to decide the first five rows of the grid.
Muller set his 1:24.196 on his first lap of the session as he and his four factory SEAT teammates took to the track straight away. The Frenchman was six tenths clear after that first run and didn't need to improve his time on his second run.
SEAT repeated their morning practice result of locking out the top five positions as Jordi Gene, Gabriele Tarquini, Tiago Monteiro and Rickard Rydell followed with times within three tenths of Muller.
The BMW drivers elected to attempt just one flying lap in the 10-minute session, leaving their runs to the very end. But none could get among the SEATs, Jorg Muller the quickest of them in sixth.
Augusto Farfus will start race one of his home round in seventh place, ahead of the Chevrolets of Alain Menu and Nicola Larini who set exactly the same time in eigth and ninth. Andy Priaulx was the last of those to make it through to Q2 in 10th.
Sergio Hernandez just missed out on making Q2 on his factory debut, but he was one place ahead of the man whose seat he took at BMW, Felix Porteiro - the best of the independent runners in 12th.
Pos Driver Car Time Gap 1. Yvan Muller SEAT 1:24.196 2. Jordi Gene SEAT 1:24.315 + 0.119 3. Gabriele Tarquini SEAT 1:24.355 + 0.159 4. Tiago Monteiro SEAT 1:24.472 + 0.276 5. Rickard Rydell SEAT 1:24.486 + 0.290 6. Jorg Muller BMW 1:24.637 + 0.441 7. Augusto Farfus BMW 1:24.749 + 0.553 8. Alain Menu Chevrolet 1:24.831 + 0.635 9. Nicola Larini Chevrolet 1:24.831 + 0.635 10. Andy Priaulx BMW 1:24.933 + 0.737 11. Sergio Hernandez BMW 1:25.046 + 0.850 12. Felix Porteiro BMW 1:25.377 + 1.181 13. Robert Huff Chevrolet 1:25.456 + 1.260 14. Alex Zanardi BMW 1:25.488 + 1.292 15. Franz Engstler BMW 1:26.018 + 1.822 16. Tom Boardman SEAT 1:26.026 + 1.830 17. Stefano D'Aste BMW 1:26.076 + 1.880 18. Tom Coronel SEAT 1:26.220 + 2.024 19. Marin Colak SEAT 1:26.281 + 2.085 20. Jaap van Lagen Lada 1:26.753 + 2.557 21. George Tanev BMW 1:26.940 + 2.744 22. Kristian Poulsen BMW 1:27.578 + 3.382 23. Kirill Ladygin Lada 1:27.585 + 3.389 24. Viktor Shapovalov Lada 1:28.035 + 3.839
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