Gabriele Tarquini beats Yvan Muller to Sunday pole in Morocco
BRC Racing Team’s Gabriele Tarquini followed up on his Saturday race victory in Marrakech with pole position for the third race of the day, outpacing Hyundai rival Yvan Muller by 0.080 seconds in the one-lap qualifying shootout.
All four Hyundais dominated qualifying, with Muller leading the charge through Q1 in his YMR-run car, with team-mate Thed Björk leading the way through Q2.
The first segment of qualifying lasted almost an hour after a 20-minute stoppage, when Denis Dupont’s brakes failed into Turn 1 in his Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS, which caused damage to the tyre barrier.
Big names to fall in the first segment included Münnich Honda driver Esteban Guerrieri, who just missed the cut to make the top 12, along with the two Boutsen Ginion Racing Hondas of Tom Coronel and Benjamin Lessennes.
Thed Björk put down a flyer in Q2 and led another Hyundai top four ahead of Tarquini, Michelisz and Muller, with Yann Ehrlacher setting a late improvement to make it into the top five shootout.
The two Audis of Gordon Shedden and Frédéric Vervisch missed the top ten turnaround for the Race 2 grid, with Vervisch also taking a five-place penalty for Race 2 for the first lap incident yesterday.
Pepe Oriola qualified tenth and put his Campos Racing Cupra TCR on pole for Race 2 ahead of Jean-Karl Vernay’s WRT Audi, with James Thompson starting third in the Münnich Honda.
In the top five shootout, Ehrlacher’s benchmark was quickly eclipsed by uncle Yvan’s Hyundai, with the four-time champion’s lap holding until former rival Tarquini’s run, with the Italian outpacing him by eight-hundredths of a second.
Thed Björk was last out but was unable to replicate his lap from Q2 and had to settle for fourth.
The reversed grid Race 2 is scheduled for 16:45 WEST (17:45 CET), with Race 3 following at 18:10 / 19:10.
