Yvan Muller secured his 18th career pole position ahead of Tom Coronel in the World Touring Car Championship in Russia, as a late rain shower turned qualifying into a one-shot showdown.
Click here for the full qualifying results.
Coronel, who had been the fastest driving in Q1, missed out on his first-ever pole position in the WTCC by just 0.070 seconds. After qualifying, Muller admitted that the conditions on his only flying lap had been challenging.
“It was tough with a session like this,” said Muller. “With some spots of water there is no time to lose. It was raining more and more during the lap so it was tricky to not make a mistake. If you brake too late you lock up and then you lose everything. It was for sure the only chance we had.”
Rob Huff will line up for Sunday;s first race from third after another strong performance in his Münnich Motorsport SEAT. Joining the Brit on the second row of the grid is Zengő’s Norbert Michelisz, who ended qualifying as the top Honda driver some four tenths off the pace.
Having left it until late to set a time in Q1, Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini posted the fifth fastest time in Q2, ahead of a LADA’s James Thompson, who put in his strongest qualifying showing of the season to qualify sixth at his team’s home event.
Tuenti’s Pepe Oriola and Nika Racing’s Michel Nykjær were seventh and eighth on the grid.
Ninth was an impressive Charles Kaki Ng, who made it into Q2 for the first time in his WTCC career. Joining him on the fifth row of the grid will be Proteam’s Mehdi Bennani, who also secures pole position for race two with his tenth-place in qualifying.
Brits James Nash and Tom Chilton missed out on the race two reverse grid by only setting the 11th and 12th best times in Q2 respectively, despite Chilton having been second fastest in Q1.
Loval drivers Nikolay Karamyshev and Mikhail Kozlovskiy qualified in 16th and 20th for Campos Racing and LADA respectively, with Karamyshev making his WTCC début this weekend.
Alex MacDowall failed to make it into Q2 for the first time since Portugal in 2012, with the bamboo-engineering driver only managing 18th.
There were further problems for Honda’s Tiago Monteiro, whose nightmare season continued. The Portugese racer failed to set a competitive time in Q1 as a result of water pump problems and will therefore start both races from 22nd on the grid.
Round 11 of the 2013 WTCC takes place at 13:20 MSK on Sunday (10:20 BST, 11:20 CEST).