» WTCC Brazil: Huff clinches pole for Race 1

Chevrolet driver Robert Huff has taken pole position for tomorrow’s opening race of the 2011 World Touring Car Championship season after clocking the fastest lap time in the top-ten qualifying shootout at Curitiba.

The Briton denied his team-mate Yvan Muller from a hat-trick of pole positions at the circuit, while Brazilian guest driver ‘Cacá’ Bueno delighted home fans by completing a Chevrolet 1-2-3. The team’s other driver, Alain Menu, will start from pole position for the second race, after getting a lucky break when SEAT driver Fredy Barth had his qualifying times disallowed.

All of the signs were pointing towards a Chevrolet on pole today after the blue cars had headed the order in the first (wet) and second (dry) free practice sessions on Saturday.

The teams and drivers were given their first opportunity to sample the new-for-2011 qualifying rules, which see the grid order for Race 2 determined by reversing the rankings of the ten-quickest drivers. The rule has been widely criticised up and down the grid, with many feeling that it would encourage them to sandbag in the opening phase of qualifying.

And if ever a driver was going to test this theory out, it was going to be Alain Menu. Having been penalised several times last season for similar offences – dropping down the order in Race 1 so as to give himself a better starting position for Race 2 – Menu rolled the dice with this ploy in Q1 and is backfired: he finished 11th-quickest.

Ironically, it would be a last-ditch effort from his team-mate Huff that knocked the Swiss driver out of the top ten, but his fortunes turned around when his compatriot Barth was stripped of his qualifying times for failing (twice, no less!) to stop at the FIA weigh bridge.

The stewards’ decision booted Barth – who had made the Q2 cut – to the back of the grid, and promoted Menu into the all-important tenth place on the timing sheets that would give him pole for Race 2.

Another driver to face the stewards after qualifying was Bamboo Engineering’s Darryl O’Young. The Hong Kong driver had his times – which put him 14th on the grid – disallowed for a breach of the Parc Fermé regulations. He will start from the back of the grid for both races alongside Barth.

Up at the front, Tiago Monteiro took the fastest time overall in Q1 after being outfumbled by some of his rivals running banker laps to work the qualifying rules in their favour. Kristian Poulsen was an impressive second-quickest and his Engstler BMW team-mate Franz Engstler was fourth-fastest in Q1, with the pair being split by Muller. Also making it through to Q2 were

In the top-ten shootout were Bueno, Michel Nykjær, Gabriele Tarquini and Tom Coronel.

Huff’s Race 1 pole was all but assured when more rain hit the circuit in the ten-minute mad dash, and he finished comfortably quicker than team-mate Muller, while Bueno was a similar margin behind the defending World Champion.

Nykjær fiished quickest of the SEATs and will line up fourth, while team-mates Tarquini and Monteiro will line up sixth and seventh.

Poulsen took the honours as the fastest BMW driver in fifth place, while Coronel could do no better than eighth-fastest. Engstler had his quickest Q2 lap time disallowed for cutting the first corner chicane on his hot lap.

Eleventh on the grid for both races is Robert Dahlgren in the new Volvo C30, with the Swede proving to be the quickest of the four normally-aspirated cars in this field. Fellow non-turbo runner Fabio Fabiani (Proteam BMW) will need the grace of the race stewards to take the start in Sunday’s races, after he failed to post a lap time within 107% of Monteiro’s Q1-topping effort.

Of the grid’s rookie runners, Pepe Oriola showed good discipline in his first WTCC outing and will start his SEAT from 12th on the grid, while fellow Spaniard Javier Villa had less mileage than he’d have liked – his BMW suffered all manner of mechanical issues in practice – and will start from 15th. Aleksei Dudukalo is not surprisingly down the order in 16th, after the Russian crashed his SEAT in the opening test session.

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2011 FIA WTCC Race of Brazil Q1 & Q2 Session Times (Race 1 Grid):

	Driver	Team	Time
1.	Robert Huff	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:21.758	(Q2)
2.	Yvan Muller	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:22.147	(Q2)
3.	Carlos ‘Cacá’ Bueno	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:22.503	(Q2)
4.	Michel Nykjær	SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:22.632	(Q2)
5.	Kristian Poulsen	Team Engstler BMW 320TC	1:22.678	(Q2)
6.	Gabriele Tarquini	Lukoil-SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:22.842	(Q2)
7.	Tiago Monteiro	SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:22.925	(Q2)
8.	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport BMW 320TC	1:23.095	(Q2)
9.	Franz Engstler	Team Engstler BMW 320TC	1:31.527	(Q2)
10.	Alain Menu	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:23.260
11.	Robert Dahlgren	Polestar Volvo C30	1:23.300
12.	Pepe Oriola	SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:23.343
13.	Mehdi Bennani	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320TC	1:23.556
14.	Marchy Lee Ying Kin	KK Motorsport BMW 320TC	1:24.111
15.	Javier Villa García	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320TC	1:24.268
16.	Aleksei Dudukalo	Lukoil-SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:24.781
17.	Yukinori Taniguchi	Bamboo Chevrolet Lacetti 2.0	1:25.069
18.	Fabio Fabiani	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320si	1:29.666
19.	Darryl O’Young*	Bamboo Chevrolet Lacetti 2.0	1:23.793
20.	Fredy Barth**	Swiss SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:23.338	(Q2)

Top-10 starting order determined via a separate top-ten single-lap qualifying session
* Darryl O’Young’s qualifying times were excluded due to a Parc Fermé infringement.
** Fredy Barth’s qualifying times were excluded for failing to stop at the weigh bridge when requested during qualifying.

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2011 FIA WTCC Race of Brazil Q1 Session Times (Race 2 Grid):

	Driver	Team	Time
1.	Michel Nykjær	SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:23.180
2.	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport BMW 320TC	1:23.138
3.	Gabriele Tarquini	Lukoil-SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:23.095
4.	Carlos ‘Cacá’ Bueno	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:23.084
5.	Robert Huff	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:23.059
6.	Franz Engstler	Team Engstler BMW 320TC	1:23.008
7.	Yvan Muller	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:22.980
8.	Kristian Poulsen	Team Engstler BMW 320TC	1:22.925
9.	Tiago Monteiro	SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:22.869
10.	Alain Menu	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:23.260
11.	Robert Dahlgren	Polestar Volvo C30	1:23.300
12.	Pepe Oriola	SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:23.343
13.	Mehdi Bennani	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320TC	1:23.556
14.	Marchy Lee Ying Kin	KK Motorsport BMW 320TC	1:24.111
15.	Javier Villa García	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320TC	1:24.268
16.	Aleksei Dudukalo	Lukoil-SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:24.781
17.	Yukinori Taniguchi	Bamboo Chevrolet Lacetti 2.0	1:25.069
18.	Fabio Fabiani	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320si	1:29.666
19.	Darryl O’Young*	Bamboo Chevrolet Lacetti 2.0	1:23.793
20.	Fredy Barth**	Swiss SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:23.338

Top-10 starting order determined reversing the order of the ten fastest drivers in Q1.
* Darryl O’Young’s qualifying times were excluded due to a Parc Fermé infringement.
** Fredy Barth’s qualifying times were excluded for failing to stop at the weigh bridge when requested during qualifying.

[Original images via FIA WTCC Media]