Ma Qing Hua: “Reverse grid pole was in our plan”

Ma Qing Hua will start from pole position for race two today after managing to pull out a slower lap in qualifying than Citroën team-mate Yvan Muller.

With both Nika Racing’s Néstor Girolami and Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehdi Bennani having crashed out at the start of Q2 before setting a time, the peril of dropping outside of the top ten and starting 11th or 12th was removed, meaning effectively the slowest time in that part of qualifying would secure pole position for the reversed grid second race.

With Muller having produced a time of 2:39.871, almost 40 seconds off of the overall pace in Q2 it was Ma who was the last driver to set a time, with the Chinese driver delivering a time of 3:17.063 to ensure he started from first for race two, barring any incidents or grid penalties from race one.

“For sure I wasn’t going to try to do the quickest lap because everybody had used their tyres and it was at a risk and I knew it was a good chance to do the reverse grid, which was in my plan,” said Ma to TouringCarTimes.

“I tried to be slow, as I saw Yvan was also very slow, so I was trying to cross the finish line to qualify and to stick to the plan, and I think the team and I did a good job.”

The 107% regulation applies to laps from Q1 only, and Ma’s time of 2:00.847 therefore satisfies that requirement of qualifying.