Jean-Karl Vernay scores his first pole in Monday qualifying at Zandvoort

Jean-Karl Vernay has taken his first career pole position in the World Touring Car Cup, setting the best lap in the one-lap shootout at Zandvoort in his WRT Audi RS 3 LMS, outqualifying the SLR Volkswagen of Rob Huff and his Audi team-mate Gordon Shedden.

Vernay pulled out a near-perfect lap in the shootout of 1:43.994, under a tenth of a second from Huff’s pole time yesterday to put his Audi on pole position.

Just three cars set times in the shootout, with the Münnich Honda of Esteban Guerrieri unable to go out due to damaged suspension during Q2, and with Frédéric Vervisch, who was fastest in Q2 and last to go out in Q3, stopping on his run with a technical issue.

Yesterday’s race winner Yann Ehrlacher just missed the cut to make the top five shootout after qualifying sixth in his Münnich Motorsport Honda Civic TCR, with Mehdi Bennani seventh fastest in the second of SLR’s Volkswagen Golf GTI TCRs.

Pepe Oriola had a better run than yesterday in his Campos Racing Cupra and qualified in eighth position, with yesterday’s star Aurélien Comte, who finished second in Race 1 in the DG Sport Peugeot 308TCR setting the ninth fastest time, which puts him on the front row for the reversed grid Race 2.

Securing pole for Race 2’s reversed grid race is the third Münnich Honda of James Thompson.

As yesterday, the Hyundais struggled in the session, with Yvan Muller the fastest in his YMR car, 1.031 seconds behind the pace-setter in Q1, which was Jean-Karl Vernay, qualifying in 18th position.

Race 2 will see two grid penalties applied, with Norbert Michelisz facing a ten-place penalty for the incident with Yvan Muller in Race 1 yesterday, which drops him from 20th to the back of the grid, where he’ll start alongside Jean-Karl Vernay.

The Frenchman has an engine change penalty which drops him from tenth for the reversed grid race, but doesn’t affect his Race 3 pole position.

Race 2 is scheduled for 12:15 CET.