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Shanghai, Qual.: López celebrates Citroën WTCC title with China pole

Catsburg on the front row

By Franck Drui

24 September 2016 - 09:40

José María López made sure that Citroën provisionally clinched the FIA World Touring Car Championship manufacturers’ title* in style with pole position for WTCC Race of China.

Without any Hondas making it into Q3, and therefore unable to take any points from the session, Citroën’s success was already sealed before the shootout for the DHL-presented pole position for the Main Race got underway in Shanghai.

As the quickest man in Q2, López was the last of the five drivers to shoot for pole, and managed to better the benchmark set by LADA driver Nicky Catsburg by 0.161 seconds.

Catsburg produced a great lap at the start of Q3 to claim a place on the front row, four tenths clear of third-placed Yvan Muller in the second factory Citroën.

Mehdi Bennani was the top performer in the WTCC Trophy in qualifying in fourth place, only 0.033s behind Muller, while Thed Björk completed the top five with another Q3 appearance for Polestar and Volvo.

Gabriele Tarquini narrowly missed out on a Q3 place in sixth for LADA, ahead of Volvo returnee Fredrik Ekblom. Tom Chilton was eighth, while Norbert Michelisz was the best-placed Honda driver in ninth. John Filippi rounded out the top 10, and took the Opening Race pole position.

Filippi’s fellow Chevrolet RML Cruze drivers Tom Coronel and James Thompson were 11th and 12th respectively after making the cut for Q2, something that was missed by Hugo Valente in the third LADA and Honda’s Tiago Monteiro and Rob Huff.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Car	Q1 time	Q2 time	Q3 time
1	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	1:50.279	1:49.524	1:49.339
2	Nicky Catsburg	LADA Sport	Lada	1:50.405	1:50.310	1:49.500
3	Yvan Muller	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	1:50.864	1:50.248	1:49.911
4	Mehdi Bennani	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	1:50.795	1:50.109	1:49.944
5	Thed Bjork	Polestar Cyan	Volvo	1:51.070	1:50.164	1:50.677
—	----------	--------	--------	--------	---------	---------
6	Gabriele Tarquini	LADA Sport	Lada	1:50.634	1:50.393
7	Fredrik Ekblom	Polestar Cyan	Volvo	1:50.532	1:50.439
8	Tom Chilton	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	1:50.761	1:50.498
9	Norbert Michelisz	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	1:51.039	1:50.787
10	John Filippi	Campos Racing	Chevrolet	1:50.919	1:50.809
11	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport	Chevrolet	1:51.251	1:50.825
12	James Thompson	Munnich Motorsport	Chevrolet	1:51.254	1:50.917
—	----------	--------	--------	--------	---------	---------
13	Hugo Valente	LADA Sport	Lada	1:51.399
14	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	1:51.404
15	Rob Huff	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	1:51.523
16	Grégoire Demoustier	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	1:51.848
17	Ferenc Ficza	Zengo	Honda	1:52.519
18	Daniel Nagy	Zengo	Honda	1:52.810