Chevrolet’s Yvan Muller has secured pole position for the first of tomorrow’s two World Touring Car Championship races at Donington Park. The Frenchman set a time of 1:38.470 in the second qualifying session to take his second ‘outright’ pole position of the year.
Qualifying for Race 1 – Pole position: Yvan Muller
Muller’s time in Q2 was enough to put him 0.081 seconds clear of team-mate and championship leader Rob Huff, who starts alongside him on the front row. Alain Menu once again made it a Chevrolet 1-2-3, despite the changeable conditions during qualifying meaning that nothing could be guaranteed until the end of the session.
Tiago Monteiro will start from fourth as the best of the rest. It is in fact Monteiro’s best qualifying result of the season. Colin Turkington, making his return to the championship this weekend with a one-off drive for Wiechers Sport, is the top Yokohama Trophy driver and will start from fifth. Alongside him will be Darryl O’Young in the bamboo engineering Chevrolet Cruze.
Franz Engstler had a strong qualifying session and will start from seventh, with Tom Coronel alongside him on the fourth row.
Javier Villa Garcia and Michel Nykjaer rounded out the top ten, with both drivers over a second and a half off the pace in Q2.
Qualifying for Race 2 – Pole position: Tom Coronel
A brief shower before the first qualifying session meant that the track would be extremely changeable as the session went on. With the lap tiems continually tumbling, it was Muller who ended up going quickest leaving him with a 10th place start for race two.
Coronel was the man who benefitted from pole position, having set the tenth fastest time. Alongside him on the Q1 reverse grid will be Nykjaer.
Villa Garcia will start from third, with Monteiro alongside him after the Portugese driver set the seventh fastest time in Q1.
The rest of the grid will be Engstler (5th), Turkington (6th), O’Young (7th), Menu (8th), Huff (9th) and Muller (10th).
One of the most notable drivers who failed to make it into Q2 was Sunred’s Gabriele Tarquini, who could only manage 11th in Q1 and will start from that position for both of tomorrow’s races.
There was also disappointment for Norbert Michelisz and Polestar’s Robert Dahlgren – the Hungarian and the Swede failing to set competitive lap times meaning that they will start from a lowly 18th and 19th places for both races.