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Termas de Rio Hondo, Qual.: López grabs home WTCC pole in Argentina

But Guerrieri achieved a faster lap

By Franck Drui

6 August 2016 - 21:05

José María López has taken pole position on home ground at FIA WTCC Race of Argentina, although his debutant compatriot Esteban Guerrieri actually achieved a faster lap.

Guerrieri carried his pace-setting form from free practice into the first phase of qualifying, before López beat him to top Q2. In the Q3 single-lap shootout for the DHL-presented pole position, Guerrieri set a lap time of 1m42.857s, 0.388 seconds faster than the previous benchmark set by Norbert Michelisz. However, he soon had his time disallowed for not respecting the pit exit lights on his way out to the track.

With this in mind, Citroën driver López knew that it was Michelisz’s time that he had to beat, and he was able to do this by 0.201 seconds to secure pole.

Honda’s Michelisz, who got through to Q3 with the fifth-best time, claimed a place on the front row of the grid, with Tom Coronel a fine third and the highest-placed WTCC Trophy driver in his Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1. Yvan Muller was forced to settle for fourth for Citroën, with Guerrieri set to start fifth on the grid for the Main Race.

The best of those eliminated in Q2, Rob Huff will start sixth ahead of Mehdi Bennani, Tiago Monteiro, Tom Chilton and John Filippi. James Thompson and Gregoire Demoustier made it through to Q2 at the expense of LADA drivers Hugo Valente, Nicky Catsburg and Gabriele Tarquini, all knocked out in Q1 together with Polestar Cyan Racing’s Thed Björk and Robert Dahlgren and Zengő Motorsport’s Daniel Nagy.

Pos.	Pilote	Equipe	Voiture	Temps Q1	Temps Q2	Temps Q3
1	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	1:43.143	1:43.011	1:43.044
2	Norbert Michelisz	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	1:43.494	1:43.402	1:43.245
3	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport	Chevrolet	1:43.532	1:43.398	1:43.284
4	Yvan Muller	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	1:43.501	1:43.132	1:43.474
5	Esteban Guerrieri	Campos Racing	Chevrolet	1:42.993	1:43.114	1:42.857 *
—	----------	--------	--------	--------	---------	---------
6	Rob Huff	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	1:43.848	1:43.470
7	Mehdi Bennani	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	1:43.790	1:43.537
8	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	1:43.690	1:43.540
9	Tom Chilton	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	1:43.767	1:43.861
10	John Filippi	Campos Racing	Chevrolet	1:43.919	1:43.896
11	James Thompson	Munnich Motorsport	Chevrolet	1:44.018	1:43.944
12	Grégoire Demoustier	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	1:43.900	1:44.431
—	----------	--------	--------	--------	---------	---------
13	Hugo Valente	LADA Sport	Lada	1:44.250
14	Nicky Catsburg	LADA Sport	Lada	1:44.336
15	Gabriele Tarquini	LADA Sport	Lada	1:45.202
16	Thed Bjork	Polestar Cyan	Volvo	1:45.247
17	Robert Dahlgren	Polestar Cyan	Volvo	1:45.361
18	Daniel Nagy	Zengo	Honda	1:46.036