Yvan Muller smashes Hungaroring pole record

RML’s Yvan Muller sensationally smashed the lap record for the World Touring Cars at the Hungaroring by 1.1 seconds as he beat local hero Norbert Michelisz to his 16th career pole position.

Click here for the full Round 7/8 qualifying results.

Muller posted his time of 1:43.426 at the satart of Q2 to beat last year’s pole position time by an impressive 1.077 seconds. Local hero Michelisz put in a late lap to snatch second on the grid from Italian Gabriele Tarquini, with Michelisz’s time 0.380 seconds off Muller’s.

“That was probably my best lap of the year,” said a delighted Muller afterwards. “I had to do my best because to beat the Honda is complicated. I had to take the maximum risk.”

Tarquini spent much of Q2 in the pits, before hitting the track in the closing minutes to post his time. However the Italian failed to hook his Honda Civic up in all three sectors of the circuit, leaving him more than half a second shy of Muller’s time.

Tiago Monteiro qualified his Honda in fourth – once again meaning that all Hondas occupy positions in the top two rows of the grid. However the Portugese driver completed just one flying lap in Q2 before returning to the pits, leaving him 0.622 seconds shy of Muller.

The top BMW driver was Tom Coronel in sixth, ahead of Tom Chilton and James Nash’s Chevrolets.

Only one SEAT made it into Q2, with reigning champion Rob Huff piloting his Münnich Motorsport car to eighth on the grid for race one.

Mehdi Bennani and Alex MacDowall completed the top ten – meaning that the duo will start race two from the front row tomorrow – something that Bennani has managed just once before, at the Hungaroring in 2011.

A disappointing qualifying for the LADA team saw James Thompson qualify in just 16th, with his young Russian team-mate Mikhail Kozlovskiy in 21st.