Mehdi Bennani scores shock pole in Qatar as factory Citroëns falter in shootout

Mehdi Bennani has taken his first outright pole position in the World Touring Car Championship at the Losail circuit in Qatar, and the first for Sébastien Loeb Racing, after outperforming the two factory Citroëns of José María López and Yvan Muller in the one-lap shootout.

“Pechito” produced a record breaking lap in the first part of qualifying, smashing his lap record from last year by over a second with a time of 1:59.788. The Argentinian’s closest challenger in Qualifying 1 was the Polestar Cyan Volvo S60 of Thed Björk, with Norbert Michelisz third fastest in the Honda Civic.

The three Chevrolets failed to make the cut in the first segment of qualifying, with Tom Coronel the fastest of the three in 13th in the ROAL Motorsport entry, qualifying ahead of James Thompson’s Münnich car, with John Filippi 15th for Campos Racing. The two Zengő Hondas of Ferenc Ficza and Daniel Nagy followed, with Grégoire Demoustier in last place for Sébastien Loeb Racing in the Citroën C-Elysée WTCC.

With just ten minutes for the second part of qualifying around the 5.4km circuit, there was time for only one run for each driver should the session un. The two Citroëns went out first, and it was Yvan Muller this time who was faster than López by just seven-thousandths of a second, but before anyone else could complete a lap the red flags were out as Lada’s Hugo Valente stopped on circuit with broken suspension.

With just five minutes left, it was a mad dash for everyone to squeeze their final lap in with no margin for error. Muller decided his time was good enough for the top five and came back into the pits, allowing López to take the honours, with the triple-champion producing a time just a fraction slower than his Q1 time.

Volvo’s Thed Björk, Honda’s Norbert Michelisz and the privateer Citroën of Mehdi Bennani did enough to get themselves into the top five shootout, while the Hondas of Rob Huff, Tiago Monteiro were sixth and seventh fastest, with Volvo’s Robert Dahlgren eighth. The fastest Lada was Gabriele Tarquini in ninth, who will share the front row of the reversed grid opening race with Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Tom Chilton who was tenth fastest, while the Ladas of Nicky Catsburg and Hugo Valente will occupy row six for both races.

In the top five shootout, Mehdi Bennani set down a target time of 2:00.456 in his C-Elysée. Norbert Michelisz was up on the Moroccan’s time in the second sector, but the Hungarian clipped the tyre stack at Turn 13 and broke his front-left suspension, careering into the gravel trap and caused qualifying to be red flagged.

Thed Björk was up next, but the Swede was just less than a tenth of a second behind Bennani on his lap. Yvan Muller followed, and the retiring former champion was up in the first three sectors, before a mistake in the fourth saw him lose almost a second and narrowly missed a tyre stack, which meant he was only able to set a time good enough for fourth on the grid for his final race in the championship.

López was next up and only had to replicate his Q1 and Q2 time to secure pole position for his final race, but the Argentinian failed to deliver, losing time in the final sector, allowing Bennani to score his first pole position in the championship, with Sébastien Loeb Racing cars on pole position for both of this evening’s races.