Beijing, Qual.: Chilton claims a surprise pole position

Tom Chilton created a surprise by becoming DHL pole-sitter in this morning’s qualifying session at Beijing’s Goldenport circuit.

Under a blue sky – that is quite unusual for China’s Capital city – the young Englishman and his ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet managed to beat Gabriele Tarquini’s Honda Civic and the Citroën cars of Yvan Muller and José María López. This was the second WTCC pole position for Chilton (after Sonoma last year) and the second for Chevrolet in the current season (after Gianni Morbidelli’s in Austria).

For the first time this year there won’t be a Citroën on the front row of the starting grid for Race 1, while the top-ten reverse grid for Race 2 will see Rob Huff as the DHL pole-sitter and Tom Coronel alongside him.

Franz Engstler repeated himself in the TC2T category, taking yet another class pole.

Q1 – Norbert Michelisz was able to post a provisional fastest time of 1:06.017 on his first lap, just before proceedings were interrupted by the red flag after Filipe de Souza’s BMW went off at T14.

When the session resumed, times were significantly improved. Sébastien Loeb jumped on top with a lap of 1:05.052, but Yvan Muller demoted him to second by setting a new fastest time of 1:04.953.

With five minutes left on the clock Tiago Monteiro and Tom Chilton were timed at 1:04.884 and 1:04.887 respectively, and were split by only three thousandths of a second on top of the time-sheet.

A few seconds later, Dušan Borković spun off at T4, forcing a second red-flag suspension.
The session resumed again with three minutes to go, the only significant change concerned Tom Coronel who set the 11th fastest lap and kicked Mehdi Bennani off the top-twelve. Local her Ma Qing Hua tried in vain to secure a place in Q2, but surprisingly missed the cut in 14th position.

The following drivers advanced to Q2: Monteiro, Chilton, Muller, Loeb, Michelisz, López, Tarquini, Morbidelli, Valente, Thompson, Coronel and Huff. Franz Engstler set the pole in the TC2T class.

Q2 – On his first lap José María López posted an impressive 1:04.347, leaving the rest of the field half-a-second behind. After the first stint the Argentine was followed by Tarquini, Michelisz, Loeb and Morbidelli who had demoted Muller to sixth.

The second part of Q2 was full of drama. López annihilated the field by improving to 1:14.081, but behind him the others swapped positions kicking each other out of the top five. Eventually, Muller, Tarquini, Morbidelli and Chilton won a ticket to Q3, while Michelisz and Loeb were the first of the excluded.

Huff was classified 10th and gave LADA pole position for Race 2. Monteiro finished a disappointing 11th.

Q3 – Tom Chilton was the first on the track and posted a brilliant 1:04.321 that no one was able to beat. Not even Muller and López who ended up third and fourth behind Tarquini. The Italian missed the opportunity to be on pole position by only 32 thousandths of a second.