Photo: WTCC Media

Gabriele Tarquini puts Honda on pole position at Marrakech

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Gabriele Tarquini has taken the first pole position for Honda in his second race for the team in the WTCC at Marrakech. In a traffic affected second part to qualifying, James Nash took second and his and bamboo-engineering’s best grid position ahead of points leader Yvan Muller.

The Italian set the best time in the second part of qualifying ahead of Yvan Muller’s RML Chevrolet, but bamboo-engineering’s James Nash was able to improve on his first run to set the second fastest lap in the session and claim the outside row for tomorrow’s first race.

The RML Chevrolet team’s second attack for pole was destroyed when the Cruzes came across Fernando Monje’s Campos Racing SEAT, who had gone out to try and claim the reversed grid pole for race two.

James Thompson’s Lada had clipped the wall in Q1 and taken front suspension damage and was unable to be repaired for Q2, whilst Tom Coronel’s ROAL Motorsport BMW was caught in an incident with team-mate Darryl O’Young, running in the back of O’Young at Turn 10.

With Coronel and Thompson unable to join the track, all Monje had to do was take to the circuit to claim P10 and the race two pole, though unknowingly the 20-year-old Spaniard was trying to get around to start a flying lap before the chequered flag and in doing so held up Tom Chilton and Yvan Muller’s Chevrolets, which means Muller will start third and Chilton fifth for tomorrows races.

Tarquini’s team-mate Tiago Monteiro will start 14th for both races after clipping the wall in the first part of qualifying, which brought out the red flag.

Making up the rest of the top ten, Michel Nykjaer will start from fourth on the grid in the Nika Racing Chevrolet ahead of Tom Chilton, with Alex MacDowall in sixth meaning five Chevrolets will line-up behind Tarquini for race one.

Rob Huff was the fastest SEAT driver in seventh ahead of Münnich Motorsport team-mate Marc Basseng, whilst the Tuenti/Campos Racing pair of Pepe Oriola and Fernando Monje will line-up on row five, which will be row one for race two with four SEATs leading the pack.

The first race gets underway at 15:20 WET (local time) on Sunday.