» WTCC: Muller opens his 2015 pole account

Citroën Racing driver Yvan Muller has claimed his first pole position of the 2015 World Touring Car Championship season in the series’ first dry-weather running of the weekend at the Hungaroring.

The four-time series champion posted a rapid 1:48.848 to claim top spot for the first time since the field’s visit to Belgium last year.

Critically for Muller, who needs to claw back some of the points’ deficit to reigning champion and points leader José María López, the Argentine driver starts Race 1 two spots behind the Frenchman, whose compatriot Hugo Valente – who qualified a sensational second-fastest – had a five-place grid penalty overturned after his Campos Racing team successfully appealed an earlier ruling that he had ignored a yellow flag in free practice.

The result means that Valente will start on the front row alongside his fellow Frenchman, while a third French driver in the form of Sébastien Loeb qualified fourth-fastest. The fourth works Citroën of Ma Qing Hua will start fifth, with the Chinese driver unable to set a time after his team failed to have his car ready in time for the one-lap Q3 shootout.

With the works-supported C-Elysées virtually guaranteed claiming four of the five Q3 berths, the battle for the fifth slot was intense in Q2. In the end, Valente prevailed, and left Tiago Monteiro to claim sixth-fastest in his updated Type R-spec Honda Civic, ahead of Rob Huff’s LADA and the ROAL Motorsport Chevrolets of Tom Coronel and Tom Chilton.

Local hero Norbert Michelisz was tenth-fastest in his Zengõ Motorsport Honda – critically giving him pole position for the reversed-grid Race 2 – while Mehdi Bennani and Stefano D’Aste rounded out the Q2 runners and will start on the sixth row for both races.

The big name driver to miss out entirely in qualifying was former champion Gabriele Tarquini, who crashed his Honda at the start of qualifying after catching a damp patch of track at Turn 4. The Italian caused significant derangement to the brand new front splitter of his car, triggering a read flag while his car was recovered by the marshals.

The first of Sunday’s two 14-lap races gets underway at first race at 13:30 CET (GMT +2).

2015 FIA WTCC Race of Hungary – Final Qualifying
	Q3 Qualifiers	Team	Time	Class
1.	Yvan Muller	Citroën Total WTCC C-Elysée	1:48.848
2.	Hugo Valente	Campos Racing Chevrolet RML Cruze	1:49.081	IND
3.	José María López	Citroën Total WTCC C-Elysée	1:49.567
4.	Sébastien Loeb	Citroën Total WTCC C-Elysée	1:49.572
5.	Ma Qing Hua	Citroën Total WTCC C-Elysée	no time
	Q2 Qualifiers	Team	Time	Class
6.	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS Civic WTCC	1:49.819
7.	Rob Huff	LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta WTCC	1:49.834
8.	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze	1:50.021	IND
9.	Tom Chilton	ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze	1:50.284	IND
10.	Norbert Michelisz	Zengõ Motorsport Honda Civic WTCC	1:50.301
11.	Mehdi Bennani	Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën C-Elysée	1:50.384	IND
12.	Stefano D’Aste	Münnich Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze	1:51.745	IND
	Q1 Qualifiers	Team	Time	Class
13.	John Filippi	Campos Racing Chevrolet RML Cruze	1:51.715	IND
14.	James Thompson	LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta WTCC	1:52.153
15.	Grégoire Demoustier	Craft-Bamboo Racing Chevrolet RML Cruze	1:52.355	IND
16.	Mikhail Kozlovskiy	LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta WTCC	1:54.179
17..	Gabriele Tarquini	Honda Racing Team JAS Civic WTCC	no time