Lapierre Welcomes WC Lead

The Frenchman claimed two points for his pole position, and when told he was now leading the championship he laughed and noted: "Two points today is great, but ten points tomorrow is a bit more important."

The pole position was a big reward for Lapierre's results in qualifying, who had to work hard to reclaim time lost in this morning's free practice session: "It feels really good because this morning we had no laps, but the team and Heikki did a great job and were able to give me a lot of good information."

Lapierre will be keen to avoid a repeat of his last lap, when he spun into the gravel trying to better his pole time: "I just pushed too hard on the final corner and lost it.

"Hopefully that won't happen again, and I think we will just see what happens ­ we still have to take care of the car, because there are still some problems and they are maybe a bit fragile."