Ma Qing Hua missed Q3 chance due to qualifying anomaly

Citroën’s Ma Qing Hua missed out on his chance to try and qualify on pole position at the Hungaroring despite making the top five shootout due to a short turnaround time between the sessions, which meant the team were unable to prepare his car for his allotted time slot.

Ma had set the first fastest time in Q2, which meant he was first to go out in the top five qualifying shootout, but due to the length of the lap, the Chinese driver ran out of time to get back to the pits, change to his Q3 tyres and get out of the pit lane during his allotted slot, forcing the team to wheel him back down the pit lane as the red light came on.

“When I finished the lap in Q2, it was only something like two minutes until the pit opens for Q3, which is impossible to do as we had to change the tyres for Q3,” said Ma to TouringCarTimes. “The team did the tye change in record time, and we left as soon as they were changed but there was not enough time, this was nothing we could anything about.”

Ma therefore will start the first race tomorrow from fifth on the grid, and will be the best placed Citroën driver in sixth for race two with the reversed top ten.

“It’s been quite difficult this weekend for me, as FP1 was the first session for me in the wet in a WTCC car, as during testing or during last season I never drove a car in wet conditions. It’s also my first time at the Hungaroring circuit, so everything was quite rushed, but so far it was so good, we had some balance problems in qualifying, but we were able to improve the set-up to improve my pace.

“In Q2 I had some traffic and still wasn’t far from the fastest time and had strong hopes for Q3,” he remarked.