New 2013 champion Yvan Muller took pole position in qualifying for the World Touring Car Championship in China, heading a Chevrolet 1-2-3-4-5-6 to take his seventh pole position of the season.
Click here for the full qualifying results.
Muller’s time of 1:53.486 was almost a second faster than the pole position time from 2012, and allowed him to beat RML team-mate Tom Chilton to the top spot by 0.382 seconds. It is thus the Frenchman’s seventh pole (including his Salzburg pole, for which he was later penalised) and the fifth time so far this season that the RML duo have locked out the front row of the grid.
Pepe Oriola was third fastest in his Tuenti Racing Chevrolet, ahead of bamboo-engineering’s James Nash and Alex MacDowall. Nika Racing’s Rickard Rydell was sixth fastest and last of the turbocharged Chevrolets, the last driver to be within a second of Muller’s time.
Seventh-placed Norbert Michelisz was the top non-Chevrolet driver in his Zengő Motorsport Honda, ahead of Münnich Motorsport’s Rob Huff in eighth.
Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro completed the top ten in ninth and tenth respectively and will therefore start race two from the front row of the grid.
Only 11 cars were allowed entry into Q2, with Franz Engstler qualifying in 11th in only his second Q2 appearance of the season.
Volvo’s Thed Björk was seventh fastest in Q1. However as the Swedish team are making a one-off appearance with a nationally-homologated car, Björk was not eligible to compete in Q2. Despite this, no additional cars were allowed entry into Q2, forcing 13th-placed Tom Coronel to have to settle for not having an opportunity to improve his time in the second session.
Björk was later found to have been running underweight and was handed a five-place grid penalty for both of Sunday’s races, promoting Coronel to 12th.
LADA’s James Thompson in 14th missed out on entry into Q2 by 0.152 seconds.
Campos Racing’s Yukinori Taniguchi was the top qualifier in the EuroSport Asia Trophy in 25th, although the Japanese is the only driver in the class to be racing at the wheel of a turbo-charged car. He was 1.737 seconds faster than Henry Ho, who qualified second in class.
Round 21 takes place at 15:35 CST on Sunday (07:35 GMT; 08:35 CET).