» WTCC: Muller on pole for Macau finale

Yvan Muller has kicked off his final weekend in RML colours in the best possible fashion, claiming a dominant pole position for Sunday’s opening World Touring Car Championship race at Macau.

The Frenchman broke the lap record in a heavily-disrupted session, ultimately finishing quicker the Castrol Honda pairing of Tiago Monteiro and Gabriele Tarquini by more than a second around the 6.1-kilometre street circuit.

The lead-up to qualifying wasn’t completely without drama for the RML team. While Muller had managed to remain error-free in the preceding practice sessions, the same could not be said for his teammate Tom Chilton, who badly mangled his car in FP2 after a heavy accident at the Fisherman’s Bend.

The first half-hour Q1 session was interrupted by no less than three red flags. The Campos Racing pairing of Hugo Valente and Michael Soong triggered the first two with separate crashes in their SEAT Leóns. Valente binned his car at Paiol, while Soong’s was a bit more dramatic: his car caught fire after crashing at Fisherman’s Bend.

The third red flag came courtesy of Fredy Barth, who also crashed his Weichers-Sport BMW at Paiol.

That left the remaining runners with just five minutes in Q1 in which to improve on their earlier lap times. Chilton managed to get his hastily-repaired Chevrolet inside the top-twelve cut-off, while late improvements for Gabriele Tarquini, Rob Huff and Norbert Michelisz proved enough to knock the unfortunate Pepe Oriola into an early bath.

Outside of Oriola’s misfortune, the final make-up of Q2 didn’t produce too many surprises. James Thompson did well to get his LADA into the second stage, while Tom Coronel was the sole BMW runner to make it through.

Henry Ho finished as the fastest of the EuroSport Asia Trophy contenders, with the Macanese driver getting his very outdated and underpowered BMW 320si 24th-fastest overall, only seven seconds of Muller’s provisional pole time.

The second stage of qualifying proved to be just as straightforward for Muller. The Frenchman’s first of two timed runs proved good enough to move him to the top of the timesheets, less than 0.3 seconds clear of Monteiro’s Honda Civic.

But not to be outdone, he had a crack at another run, smashing the lap record with a time eight-tenths of a second faster!

Monteiro wasn’t able to better Muller’s first timed run, and so the four-time World Champion finished a second clear of the Portuguese driver, while former champions Gabriele Tarquini and Rob Huff locked out the second row of the grid.

Alex MacDowall was the fastest Independent Trophy qualifier; he lines up two sports ahead of teammate and trophy rival James Nash – the latter needs at least an eighth-placed finish in either of Sunday’s races to wrap up the crown.

Coronel took his ROAL BMW tenth-quickest in Q2, which gives him pole position for Sunday’s second race when the ten fastest qualifiers’ grid positions are reversed. Thompson starts alongside, and could be a dark horse for victory given his LADA’s impressive straightline speed.

2013 FIA WTCC Guia Race of Macau Q1 & Q2 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Q2 Time	YIT
1.	Yvan Muller	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	2:28.933
2.	Tiago Monteiro	Castrol Honda Civic WTCC	+ 1.000
3.	Gabriele Tarquini	Castrol Honda Civic WTCC	+ 1.058
4.	Robert Huff	Münnich Motorsport SEAT León WTCC	+ 1.174
5.	Norbert Michelisz	Zengõ Motorsport Honda Civic WTCC	+ 1.291
6.	Alex MacDowall	Bamboo Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	+ 1.315	Y
7.	Tom Chilton	RML Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	+ 1.650
8.	James Nash	Bamboo Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	+ 1.790	Y
9.	James Thompson	LADA Sport Granta	+ 2.256
10.	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport BMW 320TC	+ 2.354
11.	Marc Basseng	Münnich Motorsport SEAT León WTCC	+ 2.549
12.	Tom Boardman	Special Tune Racing SEAT León WTCC	+ 6.056	Y
	Q2 CUT-OFF: 2:31.755		Q1 Gap
13.	Pepe Oriola	Tuenti Racing Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	+ 1.658	Y
14.	Mehdi Bennani	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320TC	+ 2.036	Y
15.	Stefano D’Aste	PB Sport BMW 320TC	+ 2.524	Y
16.	Fredy Barth	Wiechers-Sport BMW 320TC	+ 2.819	Y
17.	Darryl O’Young	ROAL Motorsport BMW 320TC	+ 2.962	Y
18.	Hugo Valente	Campos Racing Team SEAT León WTCC	+ 3.123	Y
19.	Konstantins Calko	Campos Racing Team SEAT León WTCC	+ 3.705	Y
20.	Mikhail Kozlovskiy	LADA Sport Granta	+ 4.082
21.	Franz Engstler	Liqui Moly Engstler BMW 320TC	+ 4.525	Y
22.	Charles Ka-Ki Ng*	Liqui Moly Engstler BMW 320TC	+ 4.633	Y
23.	René Münnich	Münnich Motorsport SEAT León WTCC	+ 5.857	Y
24.	Henry Ho Wai Kun	Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMW 320si	+ 7.000	Y/A
25.	Filipe de Souza*	China Dragon Chevrolet Cruze LT	+ 7.778	Y/A
26.	Yukinori Tanuguchi	NIKA Racing Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	+ 8.326	Y/A
27.	Jerónimo Badaraco*	Son Veng Racing Chevrolet Cruze LT	+ 8.724	Y/A
28.	Michael Soong	Campos Racing Team SEAT León WTCC	+ 9.755	Y
29.	Joseph Merszei	Liqui Moly Engstler BMW 320si	+ 10.409	Y/A
	OUTSIDE 107%		Q1 Gap
DNQ.	Eurico de Jesus	PAS Macau Honda Accord Euro-R	+ 10.874	Y/A
DNQ.	Ng Kin Veng	China Dragon Chevrolet Cruze LT	+ 11.352	Y/A
DNQ.	Celio Alves Dias	China Dragon Chevrolet Lacetti	+ 12.379	Y/A
DNQ.	Mak Ka Lok	RPM Racing BMW 320si	+ 12.817	Y/A
DNQ.	Lam Kam San	China Dragon Chevrolet Lacetti	+ 16.689	Y/A

’Q1 Gap’ denotes gap to fastest Q1 time of 2:30.142 set by Yvan Muller

Penalties
* Charles Ng incurs a ten-place grid penalty for Race 1 for posing an on-track hazard by driving a damaged vehicle back to the pits.
* Felipe de Souza, Jerónimo Badaraco will start from the rear of the grid for Race 1 for an unscheduled engine change.

‘Y’ denotes Yokohama Independent Trophy entered driver
’A’ denotes Eurosport Asia Trophy entered driver

The starting order for Race 1 is determined by the qualifying results indicated above, unless states otherwise. The ten-fastest drivers – as indicated by their Q2 fastest times – start in reverse starting order for Race 2, unless stated otherwise.