Reversed grid front row for Tiago Monteiro and Gianni Morbidelli

Tiago Monteiro will start the second race at Paul Ricard from pole position, provisionally, in his Honda Civic after setting the tenth fastest time in Q2, with Gianni Morbidelli starting alongside after taking part in his first qualifying session after missing the session in Morocco.

Morbidelli was sixth fastest in Q1, and ninth in Q2 which will see him start ninth on the grid for race one, but second for race two, the top placed Chevrolet in the reversed grid race, which would seem to be the only chance for any other team to deprive Citroën of victory on Sunday.

The Italian was indifferent about the result, as unlike Monteiro, the aim wasn’t to deliberately shoot for the reverse grid but to achieve the best position possible.

“I think I was quite happy during Qualifying 1 as I did a good lap and found the car quite good with new tyres, but it was not the same in Q2,” said Morbidelli to TouringCarTimes. “When I put the new tyres on I felt more understeer and the car was more difficult to drive in the slow corners. I also made a small mistake which probably cost a couple of tenths.

“We are still a little bit far from the other (Chevrolets), and we have to improve, which means testing as soon as we can to find something in the set-up. Ninth means I start the second race from the front-row, which is the only positive, but I’m not sure whether to be happy or unhappy,” he added.

Tiago Monteiro will start race two from pole in the Honda Civic, with team-mate Gabriele Tarquini making it through to Q3 and securing fourth on the grid behind the three Citroëns. Monteiro therefore should start with a six car buffer of Hondas and Chevrolets between him and the French factory squad at the start of race two.

“We had the plan to fight for Q3 before we started, but always kept in mind the possibility of playing for P10,” said Monteiro. “After some changes I made after free practice, it became clear it was going to be a bit difficult for me. The car was hard to drive, and I wasn’t going to make P5. I was very happy with the balance of the car and we made some steps forward, but the top five was maybe too far away, so (now) we have a car on the second row for race one and the first row for the second race, but it’s a long race with 16 laps each so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

Update: Following the exclusion of Sébastien Loeb and José María López from qualifying, René Münnich and Mehdi Bennani have been promoted to ninth and tenth and will therefore inherit the front row for race two.