Rober Huff claims first pole

Robert Huff took his first WTCC pole position in style in the sunshine at Oschersleben. 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 León 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 Gené 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 Hernández.

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 pyle of tyres and ended up carrying debris with him until the end of qualifying.

- Fabio Ravaioli, FIA WTCC -

Photos will be on automobilsport.com under PHOTOS - FIA WTCC