Photo: WTCC Media

Esteban Guerrieri claims pole in Qatar as Norbert Michelisz’s challenge suffers setback

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Esteban Guerrieri claimed his first outright pole position in the World Touring Car Championship in Qatar, while a brake issue for his Honda team-mate Norbert Michelisz has consigned the Hungarian to 11th for both races, putting Polestar’s Thed Björk in the box seat for the drivers’ title.

Honda’s qualifying was mixed from the start, after their Japanese driver Ryo Michigami missed the top 12 cut-off for Q2 following a spin on his first lap.

With a two-minute lap, the ten-minute Q2 session only allowed drivers a chance for one run, and while Thursday practice pace-setter Norbert Michelisz was fast in the first sectors, a developing braking issue saw the Hungarian cross the line two seconds slower than his Argentinian team-mate Esteban Guerrieri, with no time for a second run or for the team to repair his brakes.

The Volvos meanwhile safely found their way into the top five shootout, though there was drama when the two Polestar team-mates Yvan Muller and Thed Björk managed to make contact with each other.

At the end of Q2, all three Polestar Volvos were safely through to the Q3 shootout, along with Rob Huff’s Münnich Citroën and the Honda of Guerrieri.

At the bottom of the top ten, and benefitting from the reversed grid pole was RC Motorsport Lada driver Kevin Gleason, who will start the opening race ahead of Sébastien Loeb Citroën driver John Filippi and the Campos Chevrolet of Kris Richard.

Michelisz’s time was outside of the top ten by just a tenth of a second, with the Hungarian set to start both of this evening’s races from 11th on the grid.

In the final top-five shootout, Björk was up first and set a good target lap, but was outpaced by Huff’s Citroën, who in turn was beaten by Catsburg by just four-thousandths of a second.

Muller also looked set to take the top spot, before losing time in the third sector, but Guerrieri showed the Honda is still the car to beat this weekend, putting his Civic WTCC on pole by four-tenths of a second, the first of his career.

Six drivers still remain in contention for the drivers’ championship, with main race pole-sitter Guerrieri the absolute outsider, needing to make up 47.5 points on Björk with 55 remaining.

Björk’s fourth place means the Swede now extends his lead over Michelisz in the drivers’ championship to 8.5 points before the opening race which starts at 21:20 AST (19:20 CET).