» WTCC Hungary: Menu takes Budapest pole

Chevrolet duo Alain Menu and Yvan Muller have put themselves in prime position to significantly close the points’ gap to team-mate and World Touring Car Championship points leader Robert Huff after the pair locked out the front row in qualifying for the opening race at the Hungaroring.

Their cause was made easier courtesy of a tactical error from the team, with Huff failing to make the top-ten phase of qualifying. He will start from 12th place for tomorrow’s two races. Huff was just 13th-fastest after his opening run, and although he improved to land up in the top-ten after his second run, quicker laps from rival drivers conspired to see him start from the midfield.

Fastest in Q1 was Javier Villa, with the WTCC rookie again showing impressive pace. He backed this up in Q2 with a lap that was provisionally quick enough to earn him a front-row start, until Muller’s final effort proved to much for the Spaniard.

Villa shares the second row of the grid with Tom Coronel, while Norbert Michelisz will start from fifth place on home soil in his BMW.

Aside from Villa, the other major hero in qualifying was Robert Dahlgren, who hauled his normally-aspirated Volvo C30 around the circuit quick enough to be second-fastest in Q1. With his car’s power deficit seemingly negated by the circuit’s slower nature, Dahlgren was revelling in the conditions and clocked the sixth-fastest time in Q2, less than four-tenths off Menu’s pole-grabbing time.

Tiago Monteiro wound up seventh-fastest and quickest of all the SEAT runners, with the SUNRED team splitting its runners between the venerable turbodiesel units and its new Lehman-developed 1.6-litre turbocharged engines.

The turbopowered SEATs – driven by Michel Nykjær, Pepe Oriola and Fredy Barth – wound up in positions 13th through 15th respectively, with the cars running roughly a second off the pace in Q1.

It was a disappointing day in qualifying for the two Bamboo Chevrolet Cruze entries, when one considers the headline-grabbing efforts of its sister RML squad. Darryl O’Young missed out on a Q2 berth by the merest fraction, while team-mate Yukinori Taniguchi could only manage a disappointing 18th-fastest.

With Race 2’s grid order decided by reversing the top-ten-fastest drivers from Q1, this means Mehdi Bennani will start the second race from pole position, while Menu’s ninth-fastest effort sees him enjoy another front-row berth and the optimum position to take a clean sweep of tomorrow’s races.

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

	Driver	Team	Time
1.	Alain Menu	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:56.546	(Q2)
2.	Yvan Muller	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:56.657	(Q2)
3.	Javier Villa García	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320TC	1:56.710	(Q2)
4.	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport BMW 320TC	1:56.912	(Q2)
5.	Norbert Michelisz	Zengõ-Dension Team BMW 320TC	1:56.923	(Q2)
6.	Robert Dahlgren	Polestar Volvo C30	1:56.945	(Q2)
7.	Tiago Monteiro	SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:56.974	(Q2)
8.	Kristian Poulsen	Team Engstler BMW 320TC	1:57.048	(Q2)
9.	Gabriele Tarquini	Lukoil-SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:57.073	(Q2)
10.	Mehdi Bennani	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320TC	1:57.376	(Q2)
11.	Darryl O’Young	Bamboo Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:57.841
12.	Robert Huff	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:57.854
13.	Michel Nykjær	SUNRED SR León 1.6T	1:58.030
14.	Pepe Oriola	SUNRED SR León 1.6T	1:58.206
15.	Fredy Barth	Swiss SR León 1.6T	1:58.440
16.	Franz Engstler	Team Engstler BMW 320TC	1:58.582
17.	Aleksei Dudukalo	Lukoil-SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:58.919
18.	Yukinori Taniguchi	Bamboo Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:59.308

	OUTSIDE 107%		2:05.367
19.	Fabio Fabiani	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320si	2:05.381
20.	Urs Sonderegger	Wiechers-Sport BMW 320TC	no time

Top-10 starting order determined via a separate top-ten single-lap qualifying session

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

	Driver	Team	Time
1.	Mehdi Bennani	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320TC	1:57.706
2.	Alain Menu	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:57.620
3.	Kristian Poulsen	Team Engstler BMW 320TC	1:57.599
4.	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport BMW 320TC	1:57.589
5.	Tiago Monteiro	SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:57.578
6.	Norbert Michelisz	Zengõ-Dension Team BMW 320TC	1:57.423
7.	Gabriele Tarquini	Lukoil-SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:57.397
8.	Yvan Muller	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:57.301
9.	Robert Dahlgren	Polestar Volvo C30	1:57.207
10.	Javier Villa García	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320TC	1:57.166
11.	Darryl O’Young	Bamboo Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:57.841
12.	Robert Huff	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:57.854
13.	Michel Nykjær	SUNRED SR León 1.6T	1:58.030
14.	Pepe Oriola	SUNRED SR León 1.6T	1:58.206
15.	Fredy Barth	Swiss SR León 1.6T	1:58.440
16.	Franz Engstler	Team Engstler BMW 320TC	1:58.582
17.	Aleksei Dudukalo	Lukoil-SUNRED SEAT León 2.0 TDI	1:58.919
18.	Yukinori Taniguchi	Bamboo Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	1:59.308

	OUTSIDE 107%		2:05.367
19.	Fabio Fabiani	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320si	2:05.381
20.	Urs Sonderegger	Wiechers-Sport BMW 320TC	no time