Yvan Muller dominated today's qualifying session on the
wet track. SEAT Sport's Frenchman made his ambitions clear from the start,
posting a provisional fastest lap of 1:59.123. Eventually this time would have
been enough to be on pole position but, just to be sure, Muller improved to
1:58.816, being the only driver under the 1:59. mark and securing his second
pole of the season after Curitiba.
Muller's team-mate Gabriele Tarquini managed to give SEAT the
full front row setting the second fastest lap just as the session expired.
However, the Italian's time of 1:59.514 was nearly seven tenths slower than the
pole. Immediately after Tarquini, Alain Menu was also able to improve to
1:59.610 and stole third position from his Chevrolet team-mate Robert
Huff.
With Jordi Gené in fifth position, and fastest
of the Spanish drivers, Andy Priaulx emerged as the best of the BMW drivers,
setting the sixth fastest lap and placing ahead of fellow BMW colleagues
Jörg Müller, Augusto Farfus and Alessandro
Zanardi.
James Thompson had a
difficult session and eventually qualified his N.technology Honda Accord in
twelfth position.
The Independents' class saw a
three-man fight for the pole. Local boy Sergio Hernández looked to be the best placed to achieve
it after his brilliant performance in the morning practices, but he was pipped
by his Proteam Motorsport team-mate Stefano D'Aste by 0.048 seconds only.
Pierre-Yves Corthals claimed third position in the class.
A number of drivers had problems in keeping the line on the flooded
racetrack. Many of them spun (Muller and Müller even risked a nose-to-nose crash at turn 8) or paid visits to
the gravel traps. Alexander Lvov was victim of a curious accident when he was
forced to return to the pits after the front bonnet of his Golden Motors Honda
Accord flipped open blocking the view.
In spite of
this the session was disrupted only once by the red-flag, at half way, when Jaap
van Lagen's LADA went off onto the gravel trap at turn 12.
ALAIN
MENU'S TIMES DISALLOWED
After
the end of the qualifying session the Stewards of the meeting disallowed all the
times set by Alain
Menu because his Chevrolet Lacetti did not comply with the
70-millimiter ground clearance.
This
demoted the Swiss from third to the back of the grid and promoted
Robert Huff
to third and Jordi Gené to fourth.
LADA ALLOWED TO RACE BUT NOT TO
SCORE
The Stewards, having received a report
from the FIA Technical Delegate, decided to allow the two Russian Bears
Motorsport LADA cars to take part in the event further to the agreement of all
the other competitors, however the Russian cars will not be eligible to score
points for both the championship and the Independents Trophy.
The reason for this decision was that intake and outlet ports of the
cylinder head were not conform to the homologation form.
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