Photo: WTCC Media

Yvan Muller leads Chevrolet top six lock-out in Shanghai

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RML’s Chevrolet Cruzes have locked out the top six positions in qualifying for the penultimate round of the FIA World Touring Car Championship at Shanghai, with Yvan Muller taking pole position ahead of team-mate Tom Chilton.

With just time for one run in Q2, Muller’s time of 1:53.486 obliterated the lap record set by Alain Menu last season, whilst Tom Chilton was able to benefit from a tow from Muller on the straight between Turns 13 and 14 and went second fastest, four-tenths of a second slower.

RML-built cars completed the top six positions with Pepe Oriola setting the third fastest time in the privateer car run by Tuenti Racing Team, followed by the two bamboo-engineering Chevrolets of James Nash and Alex MacDowall respectively, with Rickard Rydell’s Nika Racing Cruze sixth on the Swede’s return to the Championship.

Norbert Michelisz was the fastest of the Hondas in seventh in the private Zengõ Motorsport Honda, with Münnich Motorsport’s Rob Huff the top placed SEAT in eighth.

The two Honda Racing Team JAS cars of Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro completed the top ten, and so will both start from the front row provisionally for race two.

Thed Björk set the seventh fastest time in Q1 in the Volvo C30 on his WTCC debut, but was not eligible to take part in Q2 as his car has only national homologation, and so he will start from 12th position for both races on Sunday.

In Q1, Jerónimo Badaraco was unable to take part, with his Son Veng Racing run Chevrolet breaking down in FP2, reducing the number of cars to 30 in qualifying. Stefano D’Aste also ran into trouble in his PB Racing BMW, breaking a driveshaft and was not able to set a competitive time, ending up 26th.

Yukinori Taniguchi was the fastest of the Eurosport Asia Trophy runners, setting the 25th fastest time in Campos Racing’s SEAT León WTCC. All 30 cars that took part in the session just made it within the 107% cut off, with Mak Ka Lok’s BMW just inside by three-tenths of a second.

The two races take place back-to-back on Sunday, with race one starting at 15:20 CST.