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Saturday, 18 June 2011 14:15 |
 World Touring Cars times and driver positions of the qualifying sessions from Brno - Yvan Muller claimed his first pole position of the season, and the first since Brands Hatch last year, beating his team-mate and current championship leader Rob Huff by more than three tenths of the second.
Weather/Track: Cloud 19C/Dry 24C
Qualifying results:
| Pos. |
N° |
Class. |
Driver |
Nat. |
Car |
Q1 |
Q2 |
| 1 |
1 |
|
Yvan MULLER |
FRA |
Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T |
2'10.384 |
2'08.884 |
| 2 |
2 |
|
Robert HUFF |
GBR |
Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T |
2'10.375 |
2'09.256 |
| 3 |
15 |
|
Tom CORONEL |
NLD |
BMW 320 TC |
2'10.831 |
2'09.717 |
| 4 |
8 |
|
Alain MENU |
CHE |
Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T |
2'10.466 |
2'09.830 |
| 5 |
30 |
|
Robert DAHLGREN |
SWE |
Volvo C30 Drive |
2'10.264 |
2'09.998 |
| 6 |
11 |
Y |
Kristian POULSEN |
DNK |
BMW 320 TC |
2'10.459 |
2'10.326 |
| 7 |
3 |
|
Gabriele TARQUINI |
ITA |
Sunred SR Leon 1.6T |
2'10.729 |
2'10.491 |
| 8 |
9 |
Y |
Darryl O'YOUNG |
CHN |
Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T |
2'10.506 |
2'10.559 |
| 9 |
12 |
Y |
Franz ENGSTLER |
DEU |
BMW 320 TC |
2'10.839 |
2'11.339 |
| 10 |
17 |
Y |
Michel NYKJAER |
DNK |
Sunred SR Leon 1.6T |
2'10.959 |
N / S |
| 11 |
20 |
Y |
Javier VILLA |
ESP |
BMW 320 TC |
2'11.285 |
|
| 12 |
25 |
Y |
Mehdi BENNANI |
MAR |
BMW 320 TC |
2'11.410 |
|
| 13 |
74 |
Y |
Pepe ORIOLA |
ESP |
Sunred SR Leon 1.6T |
2'11.687 |
|
| 14 |
10 |
Y |
Yukinori TANIGUCHI |
JPN |
Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T |
2'11.832 |
|
| 15 |
4 |
Y |
Aleksei DUDUKALO |
RUS |
SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI |
2'11.899 |
|
| 16 |
35 |
Y |
Urs SONDEREGGER |
CHE |
BMW 320 TC |
2'17.051 |
|
Car 5 - all times disallowed (Stewards' Decision No. 4 refers)
 (WTCC Media) - First pole of the season for Muller
Yvan Muller claimed his first pole position of the season, and the first since Brands Hatch last year, beating his team-mate and current championship leader Rob Huff by more than three tenths of the second.
After having been the fastest driver in both today's free practice sessions, Muller made three out of three in Q2 and gave the Chevrolet RML team their fifth pole position in five events.
Tom Coronel emerged as the fastest of the others, posting the third fastest lap, his best result so far with the ROAL Motorsport BMW.
On their first qualifying with the 1.6 litre turbo engines, Robert Dahlgren and Gabriele Tarquini both managed to make it to Q2 and were eventually classified in sixth and eighth positions respectively.
Q1:
Robert Dahlgren posted the fastest lap of 2'10.264 with five minutes to go, demoting Yvan Muller to a provisional second position that eventually became third when Rob Huff improved to 2'10.375 on his last attempt, beating him by nine thousandths of a second.
The fight to secure a place for Q2 became frantic in the last stages. With six minutes left on the clock, Michel Nykjaer posted a provisional ninth fastest lap kicking Javier Villa down to 11th, three minutes later the Spaniard replied, climbing back to eighth and demoting Kristian Poulsen to 11th.
With two minutes to go, Poulsen and Norbert Michelisz secured fourth and sixth positions respectively, cutting Tom Coronel and Nykjaer out.
Coronel was the last driver capable to get back among the top ten, pushing Villa out for good.
The following drivers qualified for Q2' Dahlgren, Huff, Muller, Poulsen, Menu, Michelisz, Tarquini, Coronel and Engstler, who won pole position for tomorrow's Race 2.
Again Tiago Monteiro and Fredy Barth were unable to clock decent lap times because of engine problems.
Q2:
On his first lap Yvan Muller stopped the watches on the time of 2'08.884, establishing a new track record for S2000 cars and claiming pole position for good.
Although the Frenchman went for a second consecutive lap, missing the opportunity to pit for new tyres, nobody was able to threaten his leadership. Also on their first attempt, Rob Huff and Tom Coronel posted the second and third fastest laps (2'09.256 and 2'09.717) respectively.
In vain Alain Menu tried to make the top three; he aborted his first attempt and pitted for fresh tyres, but as the session was expiring he could not go faster than 2'09.830 that was worth the fourth position.
Norbert Michelisz qualified fifth and best of the Yokohama Trophy with a lap of 2'09.921.
MICHELISZ LOSES FIFTH PLACE
Norbert Michelisz was stripped of his fifth place on the grid for both tomorrow's races at Brno.
The Hungarian's BMW 320 TC was found twelve kilos underweight during the technical checks after today's qualifying session and the Panel of the Stewards decide to exclude him from both Q1 and Q2.
As a consequence, Michel Nykjaer inherited the last spot among the top ten in Q1, meaning that he will also start from pole position on the reverse grid for Race 2, while Michelisz will line up last on the grids for both races.
Yvan MULLER - pole position:
“It was time! I was close to win pole position in Zolder and Monza, but I had spoiled my chances with small mistakes. Today I made a perfect lap, everything worked properly and I’m very pleased. I must say that I was even a bit surprised for being the fastest the whole day, because this has never been a good track for me. But we have worked hard, making a number of changes every time and improving the car a lot.”
Rob HUFF - 2nd fastest:
“This was definitely a big improvement compared to my last qualifying, two weeks ago in Budapest. My car was very good today, how it was proved by the second fastest lap in Q1, but Yvan’s pace was out of reach in Q2. Let’s hope that tomorrow I can catch up with him in the races.”
Tom CORONEL - 3rd fastest:
“I did a very good lap and I want to thank Michelisz because he gave me a good tow. I was just praying he did not make any mistake while I was following him. I was not really satisfied with the car in Q1, so we did some small changes, which helped.”
Norbert MICHELISZ – 5th fastest, best of Yokohama Trophy:
“Fifth position is OK. We have tried to improve using three new tyres, but it did not work. Now we’ll work a little bit on the car’s set up for the races and I’m confident that for tomorrow I can be more competitive.”
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