Yvan Muller claimed pole position for the World Touring Car Championship’s season finale in Macau for the first time with a margin of exactly a second over the rest of the field.
The Frenchman topped Q1 in his RML Chevrolet and then dominated Q2, leaving Tiago Monteiro to edge out factory Honda team-mate Gabriele Tarquini for the other place on the front row.
Rob Huff – who took pole position in Macau in each of the past four years – had to settle for fourth place in his All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport SEAT.
Former Macau race-winner Norbert Michelisz took fifth in his Zengo Motorsport Honda ahead of top Yokohama Trophy runner Alex MacDowall. Tom Chilton will start seventh after RML managed to repair his car following a heavy practice crash, with Yokohama Trophy points leader James Nash in eighth.
James Thompson was ninth for Lada with BMW driver Tom Coronel completing the top ten and taking the reverse grid pole position. Marc Basseng and Tom Boardman both made it through to Q2 in their SEATS and will start both races from the sixth row, while Pepe Oriola was the highest profile casualty of the opening session in 13th place.
Q1 was interrupted by three red flags after crashes by the Campos Racing pair of Hugo Valente and debutant Michael Soong, as well as Wiechers-Sport BMW driver Fredy Barth.
