Moscow, Qual.: Four champions to the fore as Muller takes Russia pole

Yvan Muller outgunned his FIA World Touring Car Championship rivals to take pole position for ROSNEFT WTCC Race of Russia during a thrilling qualifying session at the Moscow Raceway this afternoon, which ended with four world champions filling the top four positions on the grid for Sunday’s opening race.

Citroën driver Muller beat team-mate and current championship leader José María López to top spot by 0.046s with Gabriele Tarquini third for Honda and Rob Huff fourth for LADA, the first appearance by the Russian team in Qualifying Q3. And with Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy pacesetter Tom Chilton fifth in his Chevrolet Cruze, it means four manufacturers are represented in the top five to underline the WTCC’s hugely competitive nature.

Following his sub-qualifying lap record performance, Muller, who won the inaugural WTCC Race of Russia in 2013, said: “To be on pole position is always important – now I need to do a good start in the race tomorrow. My lap was good, there was no real mistake and generally I was quite pleased with the whole of the lap. It shows the level of championship when the results are so tight.”

Elsewhere, Ma Qing Hua, who won on his WTCC debut in Russia last season, was sixth, Hugo Valente seventh and Norbert Michelisz eighth. WTCC rookie Nicky Catsburg took ninth for LADA with Tiago Monteiro 10th to claim pole position for the reverse grid second race. “We realised very quickly we were not going for pole so we decided to be smart and use the rules to our advantage by going for 10th place,” said Honda driver Monteiro. “It’s not a guarantee we will win the second race because we now need to find a good set-up and I’m a little bit behind with that this weekend.”

Muller’s second pole of 2015 earns him five bonus points and puts him ahead of fellow Citroën driver Sébastien Loeb in the drivers’ standings behind López. Loeb was 11th quickest after conceding he had made some mistakes during Q2, insisting he was not chasing the all-important 10th place. Jaap van Lagen was also eliminated in the second phase of qualifying, while Mehdi Bennani, Tom Coronel, Stefano D’Aste, Grégoire Demoustier, Rickard Rydell and John Filippi were unable to progress beyond Q1.

Sunday’s action features two 16-lap races with race one getting underway at 12h15 local time followed by race two at 13h25.