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First pole position for Chevrolet |
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Saturday, 12 July 2008 |
In the heat of the Saturday afternoon sunshine the Chevrolet and SEAT cars dominated qualifying.
It
was closely fought between the two manufacturers with the BMW cars
trailing close behind. Chevrolet's Nicola Larini, whose last pole
position was at this circuit in the 2003 European Touring Car
Championship, took the top spot of the grid by 0.150
seconds. The Italian driver dominated the last fifteen minutes of
qualifying and even improved his time, therefore completing two laps
that would have been good enough for pole, the best being 1:47.325.
SEAT Sport's Rickard Rydell claimed second position, closely followed by the second Chevrolet of Alain Menu in third. Jordi Gené
took fourth position with his SEAT and Robert Huff, who was fastest in
practice, took fifth position. The three Chevrolets drivers fought for
pole position throughout the session, each holding it for a time. This
was the team's first pole of the season.
The
BMW drivers, who dominated Friday's wet test, struggled a bit more on
the dry track with Andy Priaulx following his fellow countryman Huff
into sixth position. Augusto Farfus came into seventh position while
Championship leader Gabriele Tarquini rounded off the top eight
struggling with the heaviest ballast of the field.
However, gaps between the drivers were very small, with the top fourteen covered by only one second.
Sergio Hernández took pole position for the Independents' class ahead of Stefano D'Aste and Franz Engstler.
Newcomer
Tom Boardman had a moment on his first laps out of the pits at the
beginning of the session when he spun the car. However, the British
driver was not the only one to make a mistake as later Alessandro
Zanardi came off the track at the first corner.
THOMPSON PLAGUED BY ENGINE PROBLEMS
James Thompson's
Honda Accord was plagued by engine failures today. The Briton had to
stop in both practice sessions this morning; he only managed to
complete four slow laps in the first one and three laps in the second
one with a new engine. His fastest time of 1:50.552 was nearly two and
half seconds off the pace.
Thompson was
sidelined for the qualifying session as the N.technology team worked to
rebuild a new engine to enable him to take part in tomorrow's races.
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