Oschersleben - Muller on pole, the Volvo second

Yvan Muller claimed his third pole position of the season, and the eighth for Chevrolet in eight events. However Robert Dahlgren created a surprise, claiming the best qualifying result for Volvo in WTCC as he managed to rank second between Muller and Rob Huff.

All considered, the Chevrolet team was less dominant than in previous occasions as Gabriele Tarquini and Tom Coronel were able to qualify fourth and fifth, close enough to Huff and ahead of Alain Menu.

These results proved that Volvo, SUNRED and BMW are closing in on Chevrolet in terms of pure performance and promise exciting races for tomorrow.

Q1 – After only five minutes Robert Dahlgren posted a fastest lap of 1:34.886 that nobody was able to improve it. However the show was not over, because halfway through the session the rest of the field started fighting to make the top ten.

The last three minutes were frantic, with Tom Coronel, Yvan Muller, Franz Engstler and Norbert Michelisz winning places in Q2 to the detriment of Darryl O’Young, Stefano D’Aste, Kristian Poulsen and Pepe Oriola.

Muller was forced to post a very quick lap (1:35.075) that rocketed him from 14th to second just before the chequered flag dropped.

The following drivers qualified for Q2: Dahlgren, Muller, Coronel, Huff, Tarquini, Menu, Nykjær, Michelisz, Monteiro and Engstler, who won pole position for tomorrow’s Race 2.

O’Young missed the cut by only 12 hundredths of a second.

Q2 – On his first lap Muller stopped the watches on the time of 1:34.357, with Dahlgren in second (1:34.438) and Huff in third (1:34.555).

All drivers improved on their second and last attempt, but again Muller was fastest with a lap of 1:33.712 that annihilated his rivals, leaving Dahlgren (1:34.215) and Huff (1:34.290) more than half-a-second behind.

Gabriele Tarquini’s SUNRED (1:34.519) and Tom Coronel’s BMW (1:34.635) qualified in fourth and fifth ahead of Alain Menu’s third Chevrolet.

Norbert Michelisz posted the seventh fastest lap (1:34.884) and won pole position for the Yokohama Trophy.