Tarquini takes pole at Valencia

Chevrolet had looked the car to beat throughout Saturday's running, but the reigning world champion put together a great lap at the start of Q2 to give the Spanish manufacturer pole on its home turf.

Rob Huff will join Tarquini on the front row for the rolling start, with the Chevrolets of championship leader Yvan Muller and Alain Menu behind.

SEATs filled the next two rows with Tiago Monteiro and Tom Coronel ahead of Jordi Gene and Fredy Barth, though Coronel will drop down the grid because of a 10-place penalty for an engine change.

The BMWs of Augusto Farfus and Andy Priaulx were a distant ninth and 10th.

Priaulx had only just made it into Q2 after Michel Nykjaer missed out on his 10th spot by just 0.026s.

Norbert Michelisz also missed Q2 after the engine blew in his SEAT Leon in the final minutes of Q1.


Pos Driver               Car          Q1         Q2
 1. Gabriele Tarquini    SEAT         1'44.727   1:44.111
 2. Rob Huff             Chevrolet    1'44.937   1:44.193
 3. Yvan Muller          Chevrolet    1'44.922   1:44.258
 4. Alain Menu           Chevrolet    1'44.710   1:44.439
 5. Tiago Monteiro       SEAT         1'44.869   1:44.468
 6. Tom Coronel          SEAT         1'44.789   1:44.525 (+10 places)
 7. Jordi Gene           SEAT         1'44.897   1:44.773
 8. Fredy Barth          SEAT         1'44.604   1:45.070
 9. Augusto Farfus       BMW          1'44.823   1:45.205
10. Andy Priaulx         BMW          1'45.313   1:45.416
11. Michel Nykjaer       SEAT         1:45.339
12. Kristian Poulsen     BMW          1:45.607
13. Norbert Michelisz    SEAT         1:45.741
14. Marc Carol           SEAT         1:45.837
15. Darryl O'Young       Chevrolet    1:46.017
16. Sergio Hernandez     BMW          1:46.116
17. Mehdi Bennani        BMW          1:46.419
18. Franz Engstler       BMW          1:46.717
19. Stefano D'Aste       BMW          1:46.783
20. Yukinori Taniguchi   Chevrolet    1:46.997
21. Andrey Romanov       BMW          1:47.344