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Salzburgring WTCC: Yvan Muller secures third pole of 2013

Yvan Muller captured an emphatic third World Touring Car pole of 2013 as qualifying built to a comical conclusion at the Salzburgring

The Frenchman carried his practice form into the knockout session, and on fresh rubber set a new record of 1m25.756s.

That was more than one second faster than Rob Huff's 2012 benchmark, and enough to earn him pole by a comfortable margin.

NEWS UPDATE: massive fines and penalties for WTCC field

Chilton was also able to dip below the 1m26s mark, but equally was the only man to get within seven tenths of Muller's mark.

That could have changed as the field headed out with time for one final run, but the pace slowed to a crawl as drivers jostled for the perfect slipstreaming position behind Chilton.

Rather than benefit from a tow however all 12 ended up failing to make the line before the chequered flag fell, freezing the order.

Defending champion Rob Huff therefore starts from third in his Munnich-run SEAT third, ahead of the Bamboo and NIKA Chevrolets of Alex MacDowall and Michel Nykjaer.

Gabriele Tarquini, who only snuck into Q2 in the dying moments of Q1, claimed sixth ahead of works Honda stablemate Tiago Monteiro, the Tuenti SEAT of Pepe Oriola and Norbert Michelisz's Zengo-run Civic.

James Nash took 10th and with it the reverse-grid race two pole, edging out the PB Racing BMW of Stefano D'Aste by just under half a second. Tom Coronel failed to set a time.

Tarquini's late Q1 improvement, secured courtesy of an excellent final sector, cost Mehdi Bennani and Lada's Mikhail Kozlovskiy the chance to make it into Q2.

Kozlovskiy still secured his best grid slot of 14th, and for the first time was ahead of team-mate James Thompson, who was still suffering from steering issues which had prevented him from running in second practice.

Pos Driver              Team/Car           Time       Gap 
 1. Yvan Muller         RML Chevrolet      1m25.756s
 2. Tom Chilton         RML Chevrolet      1m25.961s  + 0.205
 3. Rob Huff            Munnich SEAT       1m26.554s  + 0.798
 4. Alex MacDowall      Bamboo Chevrolet   1m26.560s  + 0.804
 5. Michel Nykjaer      Nika Chevrolet     1m26.654s  + 0.898
 6. Gabriele Tarquini   Honda              1m26.701s  + 0.945
 7. Tiago Monteiro      Honda              1m26.746s  + 0.990
 8. Pepe Oriola         Tuenti SEAT        1m26.887s  + 1.131
 9. Norbert Michelisz   Zengo Honda        1m26.902s  + 1.146
10. James Nash          Bamboo Chevrolet   1m26.938s  + 1.182
11. Stefano D'Aste      PB BMW             1m27.432s  + 1.676
12. Tom Coronel         ROAL BMW           no time
13. Mehdi Bennani       Proteam BMW        1m27.323s  Q1
14. Mikhail Kozlovskiy  Lada               1m27.415s  Q1
15. Fredy Barth         Wiechers BMW       1m27.564s  Q1
16. Franz Engstler      Engstler BMW       1m27.647s  Q1
17. Marc Basseng        Munnich SEAT       1m27.860s  Q1
18. Hugo Valente        Campos SEAT        1m27.912s  Q1
19. Darryl O'Young      ROAL BMW           1m28.017s  Q1
20. James Thompson      Lada               1m28.021s  Q1
21. Charles Ng          Engstler BMW       1m28.575s  Q1
22. Rene Munnich        Munnich SEAT       1m28.932s  Q1
23. Fernando Monje      Campos SEAT        1m29.454s  Q1

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