» WTCC Oschersleben: Farfus takes pole in hectic qualifying session

BMW’s Augusto Farfus has secured his second pole position of the 2010 World Touring Car Championship season at the end of a chaotic qualifying session for this weekend’s double-race header at Oschersleben.

With the major manufacturer runners making it into the top-ten qualifying shoot-out, the form guide was threatened by the arrival of rain-heavy clouds over the German circuit as the second session got underway.

With all drivers keen to post a time before the inevitable downpour hit, the RBM BMW duo of Augusto Farfus and Andy Priaulx emerged quickest after their first runs.

Robert Huff used his second timed lap to leapfrog a host of cars into second place on the time screens, only to lose it on the damp surface the very next lap, turning his Chevrolet into a lazy half-spin. As he attempted to spin-turn his car back the right way, he succeeded in getting collected by his team-mate Alain Menu, in an embarrassing own-goal for the team.

At the same time, Gabriele Tarquini took his SEAT for a spot of off-road driving as he slid into the wall, and Norbert Michelisz also had an off-track moment as the circuit grew wetter by the minute.

With conditions becoming treacherous, the red flags were unfurled with three minutes to run, and the race officials called time on further running as the conditions continued to worsen.

This left the final grid order with Farfus on pole ahead of Huff, with Priaulx and Menu on the second row. Completing the top ten were Michelisz, Tarquini, Tom Coronel, Yvan Muller, Jordi Gené and Tiago Monteiro, who failed to post a Q2 time after clobbering the tyre bundles in Q1, having posted a time good enough to get into Q2.

Michelisz, however, will start from 15th place for tomorrow’s opening race, as a 10-place grid penalty was awarded for the accident he caused with Colin Turkington at the last round in Brno.

FIA 2010 WTCC Oschersleben Qualifying Results:

	Driver	Car	Q1 Time	Q2 Time
1.	Augusto Farfus	BMW 320si	1:36.228	1:38.070
2.	Robert Huff	Chevrolet Cruze LT	1:35.518	1:38.176
3.	Andy Priaulx	BMW 320si	1:36.326	1:38.186
4.	Alain Menu	Chevrolet Cruze LT	1:36.174	1:38.445
5.	Norbert Michelisz*	SEAT León TDI	1:36.131	1:38.634
6.	Gabriele Tarquini	SEAT León TDI	1:36.027	1:38.796
7.	Tom Coronel	SEAT León TDI	1:36.509	1:38.810
8.	Yvan Muller	Chevrolet Cruze LT	1:36.111	1:38.869
9.	Jordi Gené	SEAT León TDI	1:36.071	1:39.994
10.	Tiago Monteiro	SEAT León TDI	1:36.537	no time
11.	Michel Nykjær	SEAT León TDI	1:36.654
12.	Fredy Barth	SEAT León TDI	1:36.844
13.	Stefano D’Aste (I)	BMW 320si	1:36.881
14.	Sergio Hernández (I)	BMW 320si	1:37.282
15.	Franz Engstler (I)	BMW 320si	1:37.309
16.	Darryl O’Young (I)	Chevrolet Lacetti	1:37.532
17.	Kristian Poulsen	BMW 320si	1:37.579
18.	Mehdi Bennani (I)	BMW 320si	1:38.091
19.	Yukinori Taniguchi (I)	Chevrolet Lacetti	1:38.203
20.	Andrey Romanov (I)	BMW 320si	1:39.190
21.	Fabio Fabiani (I)	BMW 320si	1:41.877