In a heavily-delayed qualifying session it was Rob Huff who took pole position in Macau, with Yvan Muller 0.268 seconds behind. Franz Engstler took the reverse-grid pole for the final race of the season.
Qualifying for Race 1 – Huff takes pole from Muller
Rob Huff ensured that Chevrolet completed the season with a full compliment of Pole Positions after securing a dominant Pole in the second part of qualifying, finishing 0.268s ahead of team-mate and Championship rival Yvan Muller, with Gabriele Tarquini rounding out the top three. Top Independent on the grid is the sole bamboo-engineering Chevrolet Cruze of Darryl O’Young.
The first attempt to run the second part of qualifying was curtailed after five minutes as Dahlgren went off and into the wall – and caused the session to be red flagged while his Volvo C30 was recovered and the oil was cleaned up – it was then announced that the session would be restarted with the full fifteen minutes on safety grounds.
Once the track was live for the second running of qualifying, it was Muller who took to the track first while Huff developed a small treain behind him – having dropped back from his Championship leading team-mate, Huff subsequently went top of the times – ahead of fellow Cruze drivers, Muller and O’Young.
On their final flying laps, Muller, Huff and O’Young all improved their times, with Huff going nearly a second quicker than his first attempt – the biggest mover was Tarquini, who moved into the top three at the expense of O’Young.
Fifth and sixth on the grid are the BMW 320TC’s of Tom Coronel (ROAL Motorsport) and Mehdi Bennani (Proteam Racing) – Coronel had been provisional P3 until Tarquini and O’Young improved their times.
Local driver Andre Couto finished seventh fastest for the SUNRED team, while Dahlgren will line up tenth if he is fit enough and the car is repaired.
Qualifying for Race 2 – Engstler takes reverse-grid advantage
The opening part of qualifying saw Oschersleben race winner Franz Engstler benefit from the reverse grid as he finished tenth fastest – while Dahlgren topped the times, having smashed the provisional time set by Muller earlier in the session.
The main Yokohama Independent title protagonists, Norbert Michelisz in the Zengo-Dension BMW 320TC and Kristian Poulsen in the Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMW 320TC both failed to secure a passage into the second part of qualifying – Michelisz had been on a fast lap when Charles Ng binned his BMW 320TC and brought out the yellow flags in the final sector.
Muller set the pace during the opening few minutes of Q1, having opened up a sizeable gap between himself and the rest of the field – while Huff was busy trying to go fast enough to secure a place inside the top ten but slow enough to leave himself at the front of the grid for the final race of the season.
In a busy session, Huff ended up slipping out of the top ten for a while but recovered to finish eighth fastest – and third on the grid for the final race, while Muller finished third and lines up eighth. Alain Menu in the third Chevrolet Cruze failed to make it into the top ten shootout after a late session incident with Couto and finished thirteenth fastest – before storming down the pitlane and informing Couto what he thought of him.
In the Independents title battle, Franz Engstler claimed the advantage as chief rivals, Michelisz and Poulsen finished sixth and seventh in the category – and outside the top ten, while Joseph Rosa Merszei was the only Jay-Ten trophy driver to qualify inside the qualifying maxima – Mak Ka Lok, Felipe Clemente da Souza, Phillip Ma and Kuok lo Keong will have to apply to the race stewards for permission to race.