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Priaulx snatches pole at Pau

Andy Priaulx claimed his first pole position of the season in today's qualifying session for this weekend's World Touring Car round at Pau

The former triple world champion pulled a spectacular lap out of the bag in the final segment of qualifying to overhaul fellow BMW driver Augusto Farfus's own outstanding effort by just 0.011s and secure the top spot.

Both drivers found half a second's improvement over there pace in Q1 and finished up half a second clear of the rest of the field.

"It's been a long time since I was last on pole [Macau 2006], so I'm really pleased," said Priaulx. "It's been a long hard struggle for us at BMW.

"You turn up at a race and say that qualifying is everything. Then when you've qualified well you say that's only quarter of the job done.

"We've got a lot of work to do tomorrow, we need to win both races to claw back the massive deficit in the championship."

Tom Coronel will start third after an excellent qualifying effort in his independent SUNRED SEAT Leon. The Dutchman was quickest of all after the first runs in Q2, but lost out to the BMW pair late in the session.

Jorg Muller will join Coronel on the second row, just a fraction ahead of Rob Huff in the first of the Chevrolets. Huff's team-mates Alain Menu and Nicola Larini will start tomorrow's first race from sixth and seventh places after all three Cruzes made it through to Q2 for the first time.

Sergio Hernandez was the fourth of the works BMWs to make it to Q2 and will start eighth, with independent runners Felix Porteiro and Franz Engstler sharing the fifth row.

All five factory SEATs failed to make it through to the second segment of qualifying, the quickest of them being Rickard Rydell in 15th place. Jordi Gene, Gabriele Tarquini and Yvan Muller line up behind Rydell, with Tiago Monteiro 21st.

Pos  Driver             Car        Time
 1.  Andy Priaulx       BMW        1m22.462s
 2.  Augusto Farfus     BMW        1m22.473s
 3.  Tom Coronel        SEAT       1m22.917s
 4.  Jorg Muller        BMW        1m23.051s
 5.  Robert Huff        Chevrolet  1m23.097s
 6.  Alain Menu         Chevrolet  1m23.128s
 7.  Nicola Larini      Chevrolet  1m23.282s
 8.  Sergio Hernandez   BMW        1m23.649s
 9.  Felix Porteiro     BMW        1m24.176s
10.  Franz Engstler     BMW        1m24.442s
11.  Alex Zanardi       BMW        1m23.806s
12.  Stefano D'Aste     BMW        1m23.807s
13.  Marin Colak        SEAT       1m23.815s
14.  Mehdi Bennani      SEAT       1m23.929s
15.  Rickard Rydell     SEAT       1m24.118s
16.  Jordi Gene         SEAT       1m24.284s
17.  Gabriele Tarquini  SEAT       1m24.506s
18.  Yvan Muller        SEAT       1m24.552s
19.  Laurent Cazenave   BMW        1m24.621s
20.  Eric Cayrolle      SEAT       1m24.742s
21.  Tiago Monteiro     SEAT       1m24.874s
22.  Jaap van Lagen     Lada       1m24.925s
23.  Kristian Poulsen   BMW        1m25.280s
24.  Tom Boardman       SEAT       1m25.299s
25.  Kirill Ladygin     Lada       1m25.457s
26.  Viktor Shapovalov  Lada       1m26.054s

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