Thompson was 14th but just off the times of BMW factory drivers
Robert Huff took his first WTCC pole position in style in the sunshine at Oschersleben this afternoon. His time of 1:35.675 was even faster than Farfus' this morning and set a new record. He was the final car to cross the line as the Chevrolet team were careful to make sure that he was not plagued by traffic like his team mate Alain Menu, whose final lap was spoiled.
Huff set a provisional fastest time early in the session as he dipped below 1:36, but Gabriele Tarquini, last year's polesitter, bettered the time just before the British driver went out for his final attempt. However, the Chevrolet driver hooked up the car for a lap where he extended the lead through each sector, eventually finishing nearly two tenths ahead of Tarquini's SEAT Leon TDI.
Fellow SEAT Sport driver Tiago Monteiro took third position, with SUNRED's Tom Coronel in fourth place having had a very competitive day. Huff's team mate Nicola Larini took fifth position, with Augusto Farfus who seemed unbeatable in the practices this morning in sixth.
Farfus was the highest placed of the BMW drivers as they struggled to find any pace in qualifying. The next BMW was Andy Priaulx's down in ninth position. SEAT Sport's Jordi Gene and Chevrolet's Alain Menu took seventh and eighth positions respectively.
The session was extremely close, with the top sixteen drivers covered by only eight tenths of a second.
Despite finishing the session with his car embedded in the tyre wall at turn 10, Exagon's Pierre-Yves Corthals took the pole for the Independents' class, three thousands of a second ahead of title rival Sergio Hernandez. In addition to Corthals' final lap incident Coronel outbraked himself at turn 12 early in the session, Stefano D'Aste, Larini and Monteiro also had incidents. The latter hit a pile of tyres and ended up carrying debris with him until the end of qualifying.
The Ladas qualified solidly with the other independent runners
CORONEL STRIPPED OF FOURTH PLACE
Tom Coronel was stripped of his fourth place on the starting grid due to a Stewards' decision.
The SUNRED's Dutchman had clocked the fourth fastest lap of 1:35.976, only 0.3 seconds behind Huff's pole position. However, his SEAT Leon failed to restart after it was stopped at the weighing bay and this resulted in his fastest lap being deleted. He was therefore demoted to 24th on the grid.
The Grid
| POS | CL | DRIVER | CAR | TIME | GAP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Robert HUFF | Chevrolet Lacetti | 01:35.7 | |||
| 2 | Gabriele TARQUINI | SEAT Leon TDI | 01:35.9 | 0.191 | ||
| 3 | Tiago MONTEIRO | SEAT Leon TDI | 01:35.9 | 0.261 | ||
| 4 | Tom CORONEL | SEAT Leon | 01:36.0 | 0.301 | ||
| 5 | Nicola LARINI | Chevrolet Lacetti | 01:36.0 | 0.317 | ||
| 6 | Augusto FARFUS | BMW 320si | 01:36.0 | 0.329 | ||
| 7 | Jordi GENE | SEAT Leon TDI | 01:36.1 | 0.435 | ||
| 8 | Alain MENU | Chevrolet Lacetti | 01:36.2 | 0.528 | ||
| 9 | Andy PRIAULX | BMW 320si | 01:36.2 | 0.545 | ||
| 10 | Rickard RYDELL | SEAT Leon TDI | 01:36.2 | 0.568 | ||
| 11 | Yvan MULLER | SEAT Leon TDI | 01:36.3 | 0.6 | ||
| 12 | Felix PORTEIRO | BMW 320si | 01:36.3 | 0.627 | ||
| 13 | Jorg MULLER | BMW 320si | 01:36.4 | 0.683 | ||
| 14 | James THOMPSON | Honda Accord Euro R | 01:36.4 | 0.689 | ||
| 15 | I | Pierre-Yves CORTHALS | SEAT Leon | 01:36.5 | 0.851 | |
| 16 | I | Sergio HERNANDEZ | BMW 320si | 01:36.6 | 0.886 | |
| 17 | Alessandro ZANARDI | BMW 320si | 01:36.8 | 1.136 | ||
| 18 | I | Marin COLAK | SEAT Leon | 01:36.9 | 1.184 | |
| 19 | I | Stefano D'ASTE | BMW 320si | 01:36.9 | 1.186 | |
| 20 | Duncan HUISMAN | BMW 320si | 01:36.9 | 1.229 | ||
| 21 | I | Franz ENGSTLER | BMW 320si | 01:37.0 | 1.294 | |
| 22 | I | Jaap van LAGEN | Lada 110 | 01:37.1 | 1.466 | |
| 23 | I | Olivier TIELEMANS | BMW 320si | 01:37.2 | 1.492 | |
| 24 | I | Kristian POULSEN | BMW 320si | 01:37.4 | 1.725 | |
| 25 | I | Andrei ROMANOV | BMW 320si | 01:37.9 | 2.25 | |
| 26 | I | Viktor SHAPOVALOV | Lada 110 | 01:38.8 | 3.081 | |
| 27 | I | Ibrahim OKYAY | BMW 320si | 01:39.9 | 4.23 | |
| 28 | I | Aytac BITER | BMW 320si | 01:40.9 | 5.179 |