Chevrolet’s Yvan Muller proved he was in a class of his own as he took his fourteenth career pole position in the World Touring Car Championship at Curitiba in Brazil.
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Frenchman Muller had been fastest all day in both free practice sessions and during qualifying no-one was able to topple the reigning WTCC champion. Muller set a time of 1:22.289 in the second part of qualifying to beat Swiss team-mate Alain Menu to pole position by 0.155 seconds. Brit Rob Huff, currently second in the championship, could only manage third fastest.
The Chevrolet Cruze was clearly the car to have around the high-altitude Curitiba circuit, with temporary stand-in WTCC returnee Michel Nykjær fourth fastest in his bamoo engineering-run car. Nykjær is replacing an ill Pasquale Di Sabatino for this weekend’s races.
Italian Gabriele Tarquini was fifth fastest, seperating the two bamboo cars with Brit Alex MacDowall sixth fastest. MacDowall was the last of the drivers to be within a second of Muller’s pole position time.
Hong Kong racer Darryl O’Young will line up in seventh for the first of Sunday’s races, with Portugese Tiago Monteiro alongside him on the grid.
Tom Coronel qualified in ninth and as the top BMW driver around a circuit where the rear-wheel drive cars seem to be struggling – no BMW driver has been higher than seventh so far this weekend. Dutchman Coronel will have fellow BMW racer Norbert Michelisz alongside him on the grid. With tenth that also means that the Hungarian racer will start the second of Sunday’s races from pole position.
Aleksei Dudukalo and Mehdi Bennani qualified in 11th and 12th respectively.
Of the drivers not making it into Q2, Alberto Cerqui missed the cut by just 0.022 seconds and will therefore line up in 13th for both of Sunday’s races. Pepe Oriola could only manage 14th in qualifying, marking the first time in 2012 that the young Spaniard has not made it through to Q2.
Charles Kaki Ng enjoyed one of his strongest qualifying sessions of the year to secure 15th, with the Hong Kong racer outqualifying team-mate Franz Engstler for the first time. Tom Boardman seperates the two team-mates in 16th.
Fernando Monje, on his return to the WTCC, qualified in 18th. Both Team Aon drivers struggled once again with setting their Ford Focus’ up at yet another new circuit, with James Nash outqualifying Tom Chilton in 19th and 20th respectively.
Wiechers-Sport’s Stefano D’Aste endured one of the most challenging qualifying sessions of his long WTCC career and could only manage the 22nd and slowest time. D’Aste suffered several off-track excursions during the session, with the Italian notably struggling at the final corner.
Round 15 takes place at 15:05 UTC-3 local time on Sunday (19:05 GMT).