Photo: WTCC Media

Rob Huff takes first pole of the year at Salzburgring

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Chevrolet driver Rob Huff took his first pole position of the 2012 World Touring Car Championship at the Salzburgring ahead of his two Chevrolet team-mates after a tight qualifying session between the team’s three drivers.

The session was all about slipstreaming, with the three Chevrolet drivers working together which saw Yvan Muller top the times in Q1 ahead of Menu and Huff, with Alex MacDowall the closest to them in his independent Bamboo Engineering Chevrolet in fourth.

Also in Q1, the two Arena Fords of James Nash and Tom Chilton, and the two Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMWs of Franz Engstler and Charles Kaki Ng were working together, towing each other around the track trying to improve their lap times, but this all went wrong in the last few minutes of the session when Tom Chilton understeered into Franz Engstler at Turn 5, spinning the BMW around and into the gravel. Chilton was also unable to continue with the front-end damage to his Ford Focus, with Engstler qualifying in 17th and Chilton in 19th.

When the session resumed after a brief red flag stoppage, Darryl O’Young was the only driver to escape the drop zone in his Special Tuning Racing SEAT, improving to go tenth fastest and knocked out ROAL Motorsport’s Alberto Cerqui, whilst James Nash was able to improve to take 13th, just outside of Q2.

The top 12 then went into Q2 with Menu third in the queue and fighting to keep Tom Coronel behind him. On the first run, Menu went fastest and became the first driver to break into the 1:26s all day, but on the second run by the three Chevrolet drivers, Rob Huff was in the beneficial third spot in the running order, and was able to use the slipstream to his advantage to take his first pole position of 2012.

Gabriele Tarquini was the closest to the Chevrolets in fourth, with Alex MacDowall the fastest independent driver in fifth for Bamboo Engineering.

The top ten reverse grid for race two will see Lukoil Racing Team’s Aleksei Dudukalo start from provisional pole position with Tom Coronel alongside in the ROAL Motorsport BMW.