José María López claims Hungary pole ahead of a surprise Chevrolet charge

José María López has claimed pole position for the third round of the World Touring Car Championship at the Hungaroring, and reclaims the championship lead by two points ahead of Honda’s Tiago Monteiro, but his closest challenge came from ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel, who took a career-best second in the Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1.

There was drama in the first part of qualifying after the two factory Citroëns both set overly conservative first laps on their first run and were forced to push hard on their second run as they all fell outside of the all-important top 12 cut-off.

José María López bounced back to set the fastest time on his second run, but a mistake for Yvan Muller on his flying lap saw him under serious threat, at this point holding the 15th fastest time. The four-time champion was forced to try and set a lap good enough for Q2 with a second flying lap on his Yokohama tyres. Initially he’d go tenth fastest, but further improvements for Volvo’s Fredrik Ekblom and Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Tom Chilton saw the Frenchman quickly at risk again in 12th.

Hugo Valente’s Lada was his final threat, but the 23-year-old was unable to improve, leaving Muller able to progress into Q2.

The second part of qualifying was action packed, with López setting a time of 1:46.487 which kept him on top ahead of Volvo’s Thed Björk for the bulk of the ten-minute qualifying segment, but Honda’s Rob Huff set a late flyer to go P1 and safely into the top-five one-lap shootout Q3, with Björk just making it through when he dropped to P5 behind López, Honda’s Tiago Monteiro and the ROAL Chevrolet of Tom Coronel.

After his escape from Q1, Muller could only manage eighth in Q2 which converts into third for the reversed grid opening race, while the front row will be shared by Volvo’s Fredrik Ekblom with Mehdi Bennani’s SLR Citroën on pole position.

Björk’s time was a safe one of 1:46.980, but the Swede was soon outdone by Tom Coronel, with the Dutchman having shown incredible pace in the first sector throughout qualifying in his unladed Chevrolet.

Tiago Monteiro followed on track, but the championship leader was unable to improve on Coronel’s time, while there was no stopping José María López, who would break the lap record with a time of 1:46.109, 2.6 seconds faster than last year’s record on the newly resurfaced circuit.

Rob Huff was last to run, but a mistake in the first sector meant the 2012 champion qualified in third, with López and Coronel confirmed to share the front row in Sunday’s main race.