» WTCC Round 2: Tarquini claims pole in Morocco

Defending WTCC champion Gabriele Tarquini has continued SEAT’s remarkable dominance of the second round of the 2010 season by topping the timesheets in qualifying to determine the grid for the event’s opening race on Sunday.

With its front-wheel drive turbo diesel power not initially expected to perform as strongly on the stop-start street circuit at Marrakech, the Spanish marque has shown a remarkable turn of speed to head all test and practice sessions this weekend.

Tarquini’s pole position was all but assured when his closest rival for the top spot in Q2, Michel Nykjær, crashed out at the final chicane to bring the second part of qualifying to a close.

The Italian’s other rival for pole, Norbert Michelisz, crashed at the end of Q1 after taking the quickest time in that session. The Hungarian will be kicking himself for throwing away pole position by stuffing it into the wall.

The front row will be shared with Robert Huff, who posted his quickest time of the weekend so far only moments before Nykjær’s accident.

It’s an all SEAT second row, occupied by Jordi Gené and Tiago Monteiro, who line up ahead of Yvan Muller, Michel Nykjær, Tom Coronel and Fredy Barth.

Two surprises were very much in evidence in qualifying: only one BMW made it through to Q2, and that BMW happened to belong to an Independent runner: Franz Engstler! The German continued his sensational weekend form and trumped the manufacturer pairing of Andy Priaulx and Augusto Farfus, who appear unable to get their cars working properly this weekend.

FIA 2010 WTCC Round 2 Marrakech Qualifying Results:

	Driver	Car	Q1 Time	Q2 Time
1.	Gabriele Tarquini	SEAT León TDI	1:46.626	1:45.830
2.	Robert Huff	Chevrolet Cruze LT	1:46.662	1:46.364
3.	Jordi Gené	SEAT León TDI	1:46.675	1:46.375
4.	Tiago Monteiro	SEAT León TDI	1:47.601	1:46.696
5.	Yvan Muller	Chevrolet Cruze LT	1:46.891	1:46.705
6.	Michel Nykjær	SEAT León TDI	1:46.942	1:46.751
7.	Tom Coronel	SEAT León TDI	1:47.139	1:47.044
8.	Fredy Barth	SEAT León TDI	1:46.899	1:48.027
9.	Franz Engstler (I)	BMW 320si	1:47.541	1:48.994
10.	Norbert Michelisz	SEAT León TDI	1:46.437	no time
11.	Augusto Farfus	BMW 320si	1:47.616
12.	Andy Priaulx	BMW 320si	1:47.752
13.	Alain Menu	Chevrolet Cruze LT	1:47.761
14.	Stefano D’Aste (I)	BMW 320si	1:48.252
15.	Sergio Hernández (I)	BMW 320si	1:48.556
16.	Mehdi Bennani (I)	BMW 320si	1:48.854
17.	Harry Vaulkhard (I)	Chevrolet Lacetti	1:49.028
18.	Darryl O’Young (I)	Chevrolet Lacetti	1:49.313
19.	Andrey Romanov (I)	BMW 320si	1:51.014
20.	Ismail Sbaï (I)	Chevrolet Lacetti	1:53.195