Yvan Muller celebrates his first pole in three years with “beyond the limit” lap

Yvan Muller has claimed his first pole position since April 2016 in qualifying at Zandvoort, his last being at the Slovakiaring with Citroën, with the 49-year-old lining up ahead of his nephew Yann Ehrlacher for Race 3.

In the second part of qualifying, both Cyan Racing’s Thed Björk and Yvan Muller lapped to the same thousandth of a second, but in Q3 in the one-lap shootout, Muller was half a second faster than Björk, and four-tenths faster than nephew Yann Ehrlacher to put his Lynk & Co 03 TCR comfortably on pole position.

“I probably went beyond a limit during my lap that a 49-year-old should not do,” said Muller.

“I couldn’t breathe on my in-lap. I am very happy with this result and it was a long time I felt as good about a lap like this one.”

Muller’s lap time was 1:44.148, just 0.068 seconds slower than Thed Björk’s pole position lap from yesterday, which was set before the Cyan Racing team’s Balance of Performance adjustment was made, reducing their power back to 97.5%.

Muller didn’t follow the planned procedure post qualifying and had to drive his car back around to parc ferme, and was fined 600 EUR for the error

Race 2 is scheduled for 13:15 CEST, with Muller starting on pole for Race 3 at 16:35 CEST.