Photo: WTCC Media

José María López inherits home pole position as Esteban Guerrieri has lap disallowed

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José María López took pole position for Citroën on home soil at Termas de Río Hondo, inheriting it from fellow countryman Esteban Guerrieri, who had his very fast Q3 lap disallowed for not respecting the pit exit lights. Norbert Michelisz will start second in the main race for Honda, ahead of top independent Tom Coronel in the ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1.

Drama started straight from Q1, when all Lada drivers were knocked out of qualifying, along with the two Volvos of Robert Dahlgren and Thed Björk and the Zengo Honda of Daniel Nagy. In fact, the yellow cars seemed to struggle for rear end grip in particular, while Gabriele Tarquini was also breaking in a new engine following a failure in Free Practice 2.

Towards the end of the session the battle heated up, as with four minutes to go Mehdi Bennani went fastest in his Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën, but then Yvan Muller went two tenths quicker, setting a time of 1:43.501. The Frenchman ended up fourth, due to a flurry of late improvements, with Campos Racing’s Esteban Guerrieri improving to go fastest, one tenth quicker than fellow Argentinian José María López, with Norbert Michelisz in third in his Honda Civic.

In the second segment, Esteban Guerrieri set the pace early on and decided his time was good enough for Q3 and stayed in the pits for the second run. The Argentinian made it to the final shootout for pole position, as only López managed to beat his time. Muller was third ahead of Tom Coronel, as Michelisz took the last spot for Q3. Rob Huff came sixth ahead of Bennani and Monteiro, while Chilton’s one-run strategy also paid off as he finished ninth, and therefore secured the front row for the opening race behind Campos Racing’s John Filippi. Thompson and Demoustier were 11th and 12th respectively.

Norbert Michelisz was first out in the one-lap shootout Q3, and despite not setting the cleanest of laps, his 1:43.245 withstood the attacks of Tom Coronel – by just 0.039s – and Yvan Muller, who made a small but costly mistake at the second-to-last corner.

Despite a stellar lap, the only one of the day below the 1:43 barrier, Esteban Guerrieri lost his pole position on his WTCC debut as he headed out to set his lap before the red light at the end of the pit lane was changed. López was out next and took pole position by two tenths over Michelisz, while Coronel will be partnered by Muller on the second row, with Guerrieri having to settle for fifth.

This marks the fifth pole position of 2016 for López, who earns another five points in the championship, and is now 106 clear of Tiago Monteiro heading into tomorrow’s races.