Yvan Muller takes pole in Argentina, Lopez takes race two pole
RML’s Yvan Muller dominated qualifying with a time of 1:47.920 in the second part of qualifying, leading team-mate Tom Chilton, whilst José María López shone in the Wiechers-Sport BMW, grabbing a strategic pole position for the second race.
A confident Muller only set one lap in Q1, which as a 1:49.158 stood as the fastest time in the session ahead of Zengõ Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz.
The main casualties in Q1 were the two ROAL Motorsport BMWs of Tom Coronel and Darryl O’Young, who caught each other out when attempting to slipstream each other, and Rob Huff’s Münnich Motorsport SEAT, who after an engine change was only able to get one lap out at the end of the session which was only good enough for 14th.
In Q2, Yvan Muller set the best time on the first run of ten cars, whilst Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente and Wiechers-Sport’s José María López opted to run out of sync with the rest of the field.
When López completed his run he was tenth quickest ahead of James Thompson’s Lada and Hugo Valente’s SEAT, and with Valente only able to improve to 11th, that meant López has grabbed provisional pole position for the reversed grid race two.
There was still one more run for the other nine drivers, and Yvan Muller was able to improve his time further, breaking into the 1:47s with a time of 1:47.920, half a second clear of his team-mate who went wide on the final corner after setting the fastest first sector.
Pepe Oriola also made a mistake on the final lap after fighting with the two RML Chevrolets for a tow in his Tuenti Racing Chevrolet and wound up in fifth position on the grid.
Norbert Michelisz was the fastest Honda in third, with Gabriele Tarquini fourth in the works Honda. Alex MacDowall claimed the Yokohama Trophy pole with sixth for bamboo-engineering and Tiago Monteiro took seventh, but will start from last for race one courtesy of an engine change penalty.
“We have a fantastic car and the team is doing a great job, and the team work between myself and Tom (Chilton) works quite well,” said Muller, “and that seems to be the overall cause of our speed. We know the car very well as well and that’s a big advantage.”
Looking ahead to the race day and concerns over whether there’s any concern over tyre wear, Muller added:
“It doesn’t look like it because it’s not very abrasive, but since today we’ve struggled with the tyres a bit more which is different than the problem we had at the beginning of the year. To be honest I was not worried with qualifying but I am a bit more for the race.”
