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Shanghai WTCC: Menu leads all-Chevrolet front row

Alain Menu continued his late season charge by taking his third World Touring Car Championship pole position of the year at Shanghai

Menu was fastest in both parts of qualifying, his Q2 best of 1m54.383s defeating his Chevrolet team-mate Yvan Muller, by just 0.026s.

The bonus points gained by Menu for his pole has narrowed his deficit to Muller in the championship to 37 points.

Norbert Michelisz denied an anticipated lock-out of the top three spots by Chevrolet by taking third - and first among the independents - in his Zengo BMW.

Michelisz bounced back from a torrid meeting in Suzuka a fortnight ago to egde out Rob Huff's factory Chevrolet by 0.09s.

The result means that championship challenger Huff has unwelcome additional work to do from fourth on the race-one grid to take the fight to his team-mates.

Colin Turkington was a commendable fifth quickest on the maiden outing of WSR Chevrolet.

Suzuka reversed-grid victor Stefano d'Aste took sixth in his BMW, ahead of Independents' Trophy title protagonist Pepe Oriola.

In contrast to the leading runners, the Lukoil SEAT drivers elected to set their Q2 times towards the end of the session.

Former WTCC champion Gabriele Tarquini experimented with a low-downforce wing setting to take ninth place, and the outside front row slot for race two.

Chasing his first win of the season, Tom Coronel picked up the reversed-grid pole position for the ROAL BMW team courtesy of his 10th spot in Q2.

In the second race weekend for the works Honda team, Tiago Monteiro could only manage 17th fastest as the JAS-run outfit continued to develop the Civic WTCC.

Bamboo Chevrolet man Darryl O'Young, who started the Shanghai weekend with victory in the supporting Audi R8 one-make race, missed the Q2 cut by 0.1s.

Pos  Driver             Team/Car                Time       Gap
 1.  Alain Menu         Chevrolet               1m54.383s
 2.  Yvan Muller        Chevrolet               1m54.409s  + 0.026s
 3.  Norbert Michelisz  Zengo BMW               1m54.523s  + 0.140s
 4.  Rob Huff           Chevrolet               1m54.582s  + 0.199s
 5.  Colin Turkington   WSR Chevrolet           1m54.777s  + 0.394s
 6.  Stefano d'Aste     Wiechers BMW            1m55.142s  + 0.759s
 7.  Pepe Oriola        SUNRED SEAT             1m55.325s  + 0.942s
 8.  Alex MacDowall     Bamboo Chevrolet        1m55.378s  + 0.995s
 9.  Gabriele Tarquini  Lukoil SEAT             1m55.451s  + 1.068s
10.  Tom Coronel        ROAL BMW                1m55.720s  + 1.337s
11.  Aleksei Dudukalo   Lukoil SEAT             1m55.840s  + 1.457s
12.  Fredy Barth        SUNRED SEAT             1m56.296s  + 1.913s
13.  Mehdi Bennani      Proteam BMW             1m55.616s  Q1
14.  Darryl O'Young     Bamboo Chevrolet        1m55.637s  Q1
15.  James Nash         Arena Ford              1m55.658s  Q1
16.  Fernando Monje     SUNRED SEAT             1m55.734s  Q1
17.  Tiago Monteiro     Honda                   1m55.742s  Q1
18.  Charles Ng         Engstler BMW            1m55.851s  Q1
19.  Alberto Cerqui     ROAL BMW                1m55.973s  Q1
20.  Tom Boardman       Special Tuning SEAT     1m56.012s  Q1
21.  Franz Engstler     Engstler BMW            1m56.577s  Q1
22.  Tom Chilton        Arena Ford              1m56.904s  Q1
23.  Hugo Valente       SUNRED SEAT             1m57.947s  Q1
24.  Eric Kwong         Look Fong Chevrolet     1m59.352s  Q1
25.  Kelvin Leong       Song Veng Honda         2m00.864s  Q1
26.  Kin Veng Ng        China Dragon Chevrolet  2m00.969s  Q1
27.  Filipe de Souza    China Dragon Chevrolet  2m01.059s  Q1
28.  Alex Liu           Engstler BMW            2m04.374s  Q1

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