The Portuguese driver had his work cut out for him in the one-lap shootout, despite having led the way in Q2, setting the best time of the weekend yet.

Girolami produced a time of 1m22.031s on his one-lap run, and was the only one of the Volvo contingent to make it into the top five and the one-lap shootout.

Honda’s Norbert Michelisz was after him on track, but unable to improve on Girolami’s time, missing out by just under a tenth of a second.

Monteiro was just behind Girolami’s stunning first sector time, but clawed it back in sectors two and three to set a 1m21.792s, and score his first pole since his home race last year.

Munnich's Rob Huff was fourth in the best of the Citroens, half a second slower than Monteiro, with Mehdi Bennani's Sebastien Loeb Racing-run Citroen the slowest of those in the top-five shootout.

The second part of qualifying was red-flagged when Volvo's Nicky Catsburg crashed at Turn 11, taking no major damage but blocking the track.

The Dutchman was able to rejoin the session once his car was returned to the garage, but would only be sixth-fastest, just missing out on a Q3 spot.

When the session restarted, RC Lada driver Yann Ehrlacher made a similar error to Catsburg at the same turn, but avoided hitting the barriers.

Thed Bjork (Volvo) would qualify in seventh ahead of Tom Chilton (Citroen), while a late improvement for the third Honda of Ryo Michigami saw the Japanese driver climb to ninth.

Michigami will start ahead of Ehrlacher on the fifth row for the main race, but the French newcomer is set to start the opening race from pole position courtesy of the top 10 reversed grid.

Just missing out on top 10 spots were Chevrolet pair Esteban Guerrieri and Tom Coronel, while Daniel Nagy (Honda), John Filippi (Citroen) and rookie Aurelien Panis (Honda) were eliminated in Q1.

Qualifying results: