Argentina WTCC: Lopez takes pole after Guerrieri's time disallowed

Norbert Michelisz will start second in the main race for Honda, ahead of top independent Tom Coronel in the ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1.

Lada, Volvo bow out in Q1

Q1 saw all the Lada drivers knocked out of qualifying, along with the two Volvos and the sole Zengo Honda of Daniel Nagy.

The Lada cars seemed to struggle for rear end grip in particular. Meanwhile, Gabriele Tarquini had a new engine fitted to his car, following a failure in FP2.

Towards the end of first session the battle heated up, with four minutes to go Mehdi Bennani went fastest in his Sebastien Loeb Racing Citroen, but then Yvan Muller went two tenths quicker, setting a time of 1m43.501s.

The Frenchman ended up fourth, due to a flurry of late improvements, with Campos Racing's Guerrieri improving to go fastest, one tenth quicker than fellow Argentinian Lopez, with Michelisz in third in his Honda Civic.

Debutant Guerrieri makes it to Q3

In the second segment, Guerrieri set the pace early on and decided his time was good enough for Q3 and stayed in the pits for the second run.

The Argentinian made it to the final shootout for pole position, as only Lopez managed to beat his time. Muller was third ahead of Coronel, as Michelisz took the last spot for Q3.

Rob Huff came sixth ahead of Bennani and Monteiro, while Chilton's one-run strategy also paid off as he finished ninth, and therefore secures the front row for the opening race behind Campos Racing's John Filippi.

Just outside the top 10 was Muunich Motorsport's JamesThompson and SLR's Gregoire Demoustier at 11th and 12th respectively.

Lopez takes pole after Guerrieri's issue

Michelisz was first out in the one-lap shootout in Q3, and despite not setting the cleanest of laps, his 1m43.245s withstood the attacks of Coronel by just 0.039s, while Muller, who made a small but costly mistake at the second-to-last corner.

Despite a stellar lap, the only one of the day below the 1m43s barrier, Guerrieri lost his pole position on his WTCC debut as he headed out to set his lap before the red light at the end of the pit lane was changed.

Lopez was out next and took pole position by two tenths over Michelisz, while Coronel will be partnered by Muller on the second row, with Guerrieri having to settle for fifth.

This marks the fifth pole position for Lopez of 2016 season, who earns another five points in the championship, and is now 106 clear of Monteiro heading into tomorrow's races.

Pietro Casillo / TouringCarTimes