José María López scored his second World Touring Car Championship pole position at the Slovakiaring with a dominant display to beat team-mate Sébastien Loeb to the top.
López’s pole lap was 0.372 seconds faster than Loeb’s, meaning that the Argentine has now topped every session at the Slovakiaring this weekend.
Yvan Muller made sure it was a Citroën 1-2-3 by posting the third-fastest lap, with a mistake into turn one on his flying lap costing the Frenchman the chance for pole.
Fourth fastest was Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz, who made his first Q3 appearance of the year so far. Gianni Morbidelli completed the top five for Münnich Motorsport, posting a solid lap which was ultimately only just over a second off the pace.
The ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet’s of Tom Chilton and Tom Coronel will start sixth and seventh respectively. Both drivers missed out on the opportunity to enter Q3 despite being within a second of the top time from that session.
Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini will start from eighth, and third for race two, despite causing a red-flag stoppage in the session when his bonnet flipped up at high-speed. Team-mate Tiago Monteiro and LADAs James Thompson had to take avoiding action in the process.
When the session resumed Tarquini, with a taped-down bonnet, went eighth ahead of Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente and Monteiro, who therefore has pole position for race two.
López topped the times in Q2, posting a lap of 2:04.038 to go more than half a second clear of the second-placed runner at the time of Michelisz.
Starting from 11th and 12th on the grid will be Campos Racing’s Dušan Borković and LADA’s Rob Huff.
Franz Engstler won the battle for pole position in TC2, beating team-mate Pasquale di Sabatino and Petr Fulín to the class pole once again.
Top ten times
| POS | NO | CL | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 37 | TC1 | José María LÓPEZ |  |
Citroën Total WTCC | Citroën C-Elysée WTCC | 4 | 2:03.912 | 0.000 |
| 2 | 9 | TC1 | Sébastien LOEB |  |
Citroën Total WTCC | Citroën C-Elysée WTCC | 4 | 2:04.284 | 0.372 |
| 3 | 1 | TC1 | Yvan MULLER | |
Citroën Total WTCC | Citroën C-Elysée WTCC | 4 | 2:04.541 | 0.629 |
| 4 | 5 | TC1 | Norbert MICHELISZ |  |
Zengő Motorsport | Honda Civic WTCC | 3 | 2:04.903 | 0.991 |
| 5 | 10 | TC1 | Gianni MORBIDELLI |  |
ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport | Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 | 4 | 2:04.931 | 1.019 |
| The below times are from Q2 | |||||||||
| 6 | 3 | TC1 | Tom CHILTON |  |
ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 | 5 | 2:04.870 | 0.832 |
| 7 | 4 | TC1 | Tom CORONEL |  |
ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 | 5 | 2:04.988 | 0.950 |
| 8 | 2 | TC1 | Gabriele TARQUINI | |
Castrol Honda WTC Team | Honda Civic WTCC | 4 | 2:05.363 | 1.325 |
| 9 | 7 | TC1 | Hugo VALENTE | |
Campos Racing | Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 | 4 | 2:05.429 | 1.391 |
| 10 | 18 | TC1 | Tiago MONTEIRO |  |
Castrol Honda WTC Team | Honda Civic WTCC | 4 | 2:05.772 | 1.734 |