José María López didn’t expect pole with maximum ballast

Citroën driver José María López claimed his 15th career pole position at Circuit Paul Ricard, but the two-time champion said it was unexpected, after both Honda and Volvo led the way in free practice, and with Citroën carrying the new maximum 80kg of compensation weight this weekend.

López’s pole position lap smashed the record set by former team-mate Sébastien Loeb last year, and the 32-year-old outpaced both Honda’s Tiago Monteiro and Citroën team-mate Yvan Muller to continue his run of pole positions in the opening race of the season.

“I wanted to start like this, because I compete with great drivers, and part of this achievement is because I’m in a great team,” said López. “Hats off to Citroën, even carrying 80kg we managed to be P1 in qualifying. We didn’t expect it, but we’ve worked hard (as) we knew it was going to be difficult.

In 2014, Sébastien Loeb took pole position in only the second race of his WTCC career, before both he and López had their times deleted due to a technical irregularity, but Loeb repeated the feat one year later, taking in effect his only career pole in 2015, depriving López of the chance to take pole at Citroën’s home track until now.

“I’m happy, it’s a pole I missed the last two years,” he said. “Séb did it, and with Yvan earlier we were joking saying he’s not here so we have a chance. I had a tough fight with Yvan, especially in sector one. When they told me his sector time, I thought it was over, but I don’t know if he made a mistake (after that). Every pole position is important, but it’s very important to start the year like this.”