Citroën’s José María López scored his fifth pole of the season in qualifying for the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) in Shanghai, with Citroën team-mates Ma Qing Hua second and Yvan Muller third.
Championship leader López had failed to top any of the previous practice sessions or qualifying segments, but the Argentine pulled out all the stops in Q3 to go just over a tenth faster than Ma.
The result means that López has eked out a further two-point advantage of Muller in the title battle, with the lead now standing at 68 points. Muller himself had no answer to the Argentine, having been a significant six tenths slower after the first sector alone, ending up 0.642 seconds off the pace in Q3 despite having been fastest of all in Q2.
Fourth was Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz, who was the only Honda driver to make it into Q3. Michelisz was nearly nine tenths slower in Q3, with Honda unable to match the pace of Citroën at the wide and fast Shanghai circuit.
Sébastien Loeb was fifth, just over a second slower than López, after the Frenchman clipped a small tyre stack on the inside of the final turn on his Q3 attempt.
Both works’ JAS Hondas will line up in sixth and seventh for race one on Sunday. Tiago Monteiro out-qualified team-mate Gabriele Tarquini for the fifth time this year.
The lead Chevrolet driver was ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton in eighth – the Brit was more than a second off the pace.
Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente and Proteam Racing’s Mehdi Bennani completed the top ten and will start race two from the front row of the grid. Bennani managed to improve his time in the closing seconds of Q2 to pip ROAL’s Tom Coronel to tenth and take his second reverse-grid pole of the season.
Coronel will thus start 11th for both of Sunday’s races, with Campos Racing’s Dušan Borković lining up alongside.
Münnich Motorsport’s Gianni Morbidelli and René Münnich were the only Chevrolet drivers to miss out on entry into Q2, ending up qualifying in 13th and 17th positions respectively.
As in practice, all three LADAs struggled for pace, with James Thompson being the best of the trio in 14th, 2.349 seconds off the pace. Rob Huff qualified in 15th, ahead of Mikhail Kozlovskiy in 16th. All three LADA drivers were within three tenths of each other.
As has become customary, Franz Engstler posted the fastest time in the TC2 class, lapping more than a second faster than Campos Racing’s John Filippi.
Round 19 begins at 15:00 local time (09:00 CEST, 08:00 BST) on Sunday.
Session results
| POS | NO | CL | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | GAP |
| 1 | 37 | TC1 | José María LÓPEZ |  |
Citroën Total WTCC | Citroën C-Elysée WTCC | 3 | 1:48.782 | |
| 2 | 33 | TC1 | MA Qing Hua |  |
Citroën Total WTCC | Citroën C-Elysée WTCC | 3 | 1:48.898 | 0.116 |
| 3 | 1 | TC1 | Yvan MULLER |  |
Citroën Total WTCC | Citroën C-Elysée WTCC | 3 | 1:49.424 | 0.642 |
| 4 | 5 | TC1 | Norbert MICHELISZ |  |
Zengő Motorsport | Honda Civic WTCC | 3 | 1:49.681 | 0.899 |
| 5 | 9 | TC1 | Sébastien LOEB | |
Citroën Total WTCC | Citroën C-Elysée WTCC | 3 | 1:49.830 | 1.048 |
| The below times are from Q2: | |||||||||
| 6 | 18 | TC1 | Tiago MONTEIRO |  |
Castrol Honda WTC Team | Honda Civic WTCC | 5 | 1:50.178 | 0.879 |
| 7 | 2 | TC1 | Gabriele TARQUINI |  |
Castrol Honda WTC Team | Honda Civic WTCC | 5 | 1:50.229 | 0.930 |
| 8 | 3 | TC1 | Tom CHILTON |  |
ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 | 3 | 1:50.351 | 1.052 |
| 9 | 7 | TC1 | Hugo VALENTE | |
Campos Racing | Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 | 3 | 1:50.406 | 1.107 |
| 10 | 25 | TC1 | Mehdi BENNANI |  |
Proteam Racing | Honda Civic WTCC | 5 | 1:50.528 | 1.229 |