At the end of an exciting qualifying José María López claimed his third pole position of the season, beating Gabriele Tarquini by two tenths.
Never before this season, Honda was so close to the ever-dominant Citroën Armada.
For the whole day at the Moscow Raceway, in different track conditions, the Civic cars of Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro competed on equal terms with the French machines.
Two out of four Citroën drivers dropped off after Q2, and quite unexpectedly one of them was Yvan Muller, kicked off by Monteiro’s last-gasp attempt.
After Sébastien Loeb was not able to be faster than Monteiro in Q3, and after Tarquini posted a brilliant lap time, López salvaged the day for Citroën with a perfect lap. The fastest of the day.
In tomorrow’s Race 1 the current championship leader is now due to face strong opposition from the Honda duo of Tarquini and Monteiro. While the top-ten reverse grid for Race 2 will see Hugo Valente and Ma Qing Hua sharing the front row.
The most disappointed drivers today were Tom Coronel and Gianni Morbidelli who were both eliminated after Q1, while LADA Sport’s dream of making to Q2 at least with one car vanished when Rob Huff was kicked off by Valente.
Franz Engstler took once again the pole among the TC2T cars, improving his last year’s time by four tenths.
