José María López revels after scoring pole position for the WTCC Nordschleife

Citroën’s José María López claimed pole position for the WTCC’s first race at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, improving on every lap to set the target for future years at the iconic track with a time of 8:37.327, over a second faster than his closest rival, Hugo Valente.

The reigning champion’s closest championship rival, Sébastien Loeb, was third fastest in an identical Citroën C-Elysée WTCC, while four-time champion Yvan Muller was sixth.

“Every lap here at the Nordschleife is difficult to explain,” said López “The last lap I knew the lap time was improving so I really wasn’t sure (if it was going to be good enough), and on the second lap I improved (over my first) by more than four seconds.

“If there is a pole position I personally wanted was this one,” he added. “For me it was a really good lap…on a 26km lap, for sure there’s always a place you may have missed (where you could have improved), but I am very happy with the lap.”

Looking ahead to race day, where he’ll start on pole position for race one, but tenth for race two courtesy of the reverse grid, he added:
“I haven’t really thought about the race yet. I always try to do a good start and it’s almost impossible to pass on the whole lap, but I need to increase the gap to not give the opportunity to the others to take my slipstream before the main straight.”