Yvan Muller claims pole in Brazil

The WTCC has adopted the Formula 1-style knock-out session where the top 10 cars go through to a 10-minute Q2 shootout to decide the first five rows of the grid.

Muller set his 1:24.196 on his first lap of the session as he and his four factory SEAT teammates took to the track straight away. The Frenchman was six tenths clear after that first run and didn't need to improve his time on his second run.

SEAT repeated their morning practice result of locking out the top five positions as Jordi Gene, Gabriele Tarquini, Tiago Monteiro and Rickard Rydell followed with times within three tenths of Muller.

The BMW drivers elected to attempt just one flying lap in the 10-minute session, leaving their runs to the very end. But none could get among the SEATs, Jorg Muller the quickest of them in sixth.

Augusto Farfus will start race one of his home round in seventh place, ahead of the Chevrolets of Alain Menu and Nicola Larini who set exactly the same time in eigth and ninth. Andy Priaulx was the last of those to make it through to Q2 in 10th.

Sergio Hernandez just missed out on making Q2 on his factory debut, but he was one place ahead of the man whose seat he took at BMW, Felix Porteiro - the best of the independent runners in 12th.

Pos  Driver             Car        Time      Gap
 1.  Yvan Muller        SEAT       1:24.196
 2.  Jordi Gene         SEAT       1:24.315  + 0.119
 3.  Gabriele Tarquini  SEAT       1:24.355  + 0.159
 4.  Tiago Monteiro     SEAT       1:24.472  + 0.276
 5.  Rickard Rydell     SEAT       1:24.486  + 0.290
 6.  Jorg Muller        BMW        1:24.637  + 0.441
 7.  Augusto Farfus     BMW        1:24.749  + 0.553
 8.  Alain Menu         Chevrolet  1:24.831  + 0.635
 9.  Nicola Larini      Chevrolet  1:24.831  + 0.635
10.  Andy Priaulx       BMW        1:24.933  + 0.737
11.  Sergio Hernandez   BMW        1:25.046  + 0.850
12.  Felix Porteiro     BMW        1:25.377  + 1.181
13.  Robert Huff        Chevrolet  1:25.456  + 1.260
14.  Alex Zanardi       BMW        1:25.488  + 1.292
15.  Franz Engstler     BMW        1:26.018  + 1.822
16.  Tom Boardman       SEAT       1:26.026  + 1.830
17.  Stefano D'Aste     BMW        1:26.076  + 1.880
18.  Tom Coronel        SEAT       1:26.220  + 2.024
19.  Marin Colak        SEAT       1:26.281  + 2.085
20.  Jaap van Lagen     Lada       1:26.753  + 2.557
21.  George Tanev       BMW        1:26.940  + 2.744
22.  Kristian Poulsen   BMW        1:27.578  + 3.382
23.  Kirill Ladygin     Lada       1:27.585  + 3.389
24.  Viktor Shapovalov  Lada       1:28.035  + 3.839