Muller claims Monza pole for SEAT
Yvan Muller will start tomorrow's first race at Monza from pole position after a dominant performance by SEAT in qualifying
The Spanish manufacturer managed to lock out the first two rows of the grid, with Gabriele Tarquini to line up alongside Muller, and Marc Gene and Rickard Rydell to start immediately behind them.
The final margin was tight, with Muller's 1:59.213 bettering Tarquini's time by just 0.044s.
Predictably, qualifying was a slipstreaming battle and of the three manufacturers it was SEAT that looked the best-drilled, running a neat train of four or five Leons in perfect formation throughout the session.
"I am really happy with all the teamwork we did," said Muller. "To make a big queue of five cars work without a mistake is not easy. It maybe looks easy from the outside, but to manage it is not easy and it is even worse for the guys in the pitlane."
Augusto Farfus was unable to match his performances from earlier in the weekend, but remained the fastest of the BMW drivers, finishing up fifth alongside the highest-qualifying Chevrolet of Nicola Larini.
Larini's Chevrolet teammate Alain Menu will start seventh alongside Andy Priaulx's BMW, with Rob Huff (Chevrolet) and Tiago Monteiro (SEAT) rounding out the top ten.
It was a good outcome for SEAT in the Independents' class too, where Pierre-Yves Corthals maintained his good form from practice to post the quickest time and the Belgian will start the opening race from 11th.
Pos Driver Car Time Gap 1. Yvan Muller SEAT 1:59.213 2. Gabriele Tarquini SEAT 1:59.257 +0.044 3. Jordi Gene SEAT 1:59.879 +0.666 4. Rickard Rydell SEAT 1:59.963 +0.750 5. Augusto Farfus BMW 2:00.039 +0.826 6. Nicola Larini Chevrolet 2:00.064 +0.851 7. Alain Menu Chevrolet 2:00.138 +0.925 8. Andy Priaulx BMW 2:00.474 +1.261 9. Robert Huff Chevrolet 2:00.507 +1.294 10. Tiago Monteiro SEAT 2:00.551 +1.338 11. Pierre-Yves Corthals SEAT 2:00.629 +1.416 12. Felix Porteiro BMW 2:00.637 +1.424 13. James Thompson Honda 2:00.688 +1.475 14. Alex Zanardi BMW 2:00.740 +1.527 15. Jorg Muller BMW 2:00.989 +1.776 16. Sergio Hernandez BMW 2:01.130 +1.917 17. Stefano D'Aste BMW 2:01.478 +2.265 18. Franz Engstler BMW 2:01.696 +2.483 19. Tom Coronel SEAT 2:01.836 +2.623 20. Manabu Orido Chevrolet 2:02.045 +2.832 21. Duarte Felix da Costa SEAT 2:02.327 +3.114 22. Takayuki Aoki BMW 2:02.698 +3.485 23. Kristian Poulsen BMW 2:03.178 +3.965 24. Ibrahim Okyay BMW 2:03.507 +4.294 25. Jaap van Lagen Lada 2:03.890 +4.677 26. Yukinori Taniguchi Honda 2:04.435 +5.222 27. Andrey Romanov BMW 2:04.491 +5.278 28. George Tanev BMW 2:04.592 +5.379 29. Viktor Shapovalov Lada 2:06.381 +7.168
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