Menu steals last gasp pole from Huff

Alain Menu pipped his Chevrolet team-mate Rob Huff in today’s exciting qualifying session at Marrakech. With a last lap of 1:43.901, Menu beat Huff’s 1:43.929 by 28 thousandths of a second.

Tom Coronel, BMW 320 TC, ROAL Motorsport

Photo by: xpb.cc

Tom Coronel posted the third fastest lap of 1:43.968, only a further 39 thousandths adrift and regrets for a mistake that prevented him to improve further, while Yvan Muller (1:44.201) and Gabriele Tarquini (1:44:251) had to settle in fourth and fifth positions respectively. The fight for the pole in the Yokohama Trophy was equally exciting with Pepe Oriola (1:44.498) who managed to beat Alex MacDowall (1:44.544) in the dying moments.

Team Aon also have reasons to rejoice, as for the first time both Tom Chilton and James Nash made the trip to Q2. And things could have been better for the Ford squad without the accident suffered by Nash in Q1. Tiago Monteiro qualified tenth, and therefore won pole position on the reversed grid for Race 2.

Gabriele Tarquini, SEAT Leon WTCC, Lukoil Racing Team

Photo by: xpb.cc

Tarquini Excluded From Qualifying

Gabriele Tarquini was excluded from today’s qualifying session in which he had posted the fifth fastest lap. The Italian driver’s SEAT car was found underweight during the technical checks after the session and the Stewards had no other option than disallowing all his lap times from both Q1 and Q2, which will place him at the back of the grid for both races.