Santiago Urrutia powers to double pole as Lynk & Co control qualifying
Santiago Urrutia topped a World Touring Car Cup qualifying session for the first time of his career in an astonishing display at MotorLand Aragón, soaring to a pole position double at the season finale.
Urrutia, a WTCR rookie this year, continued to underpin his pace this weekend after topping both of the preceding practice sessions – spearheading a spectacular result for Lynk & Co Cyan Racing as the Swedish/Chinese operation sealed pole for each of Sunday’s trio of races.
Urrutia led the way in both Q1 and Q3 to snatch pole for the first and third heats of the weekend, while team-mate Yvan Muller will start the reverse-grid Race 2 from the same position.
The result marks the first time this year that Cyan Racing has led the way in qualifying, and comes at a critical time in the title fight – where Yann Ehrlacher took a major leap closer to his first crown.
The championship leader took second to Urrutia in the decisive Q3 shootout, while nearest challenger Esteban Guerrieri’s chances took a massive blow when he was knocked out already in Q1.
Guerrieri failed to fight back from practice issues and languished down in 18th place on a horrid day for Münnich Motorsport Honda.
Guerrieri will gain one spot on the Race 1 grid thanks to the misfortunes of his own team-mate Attila Tassi, who is due to serve a penalty for an engine change, but nonetheless has a monumental mountain to climb to overturn Ehrlacher’s title advantage.
Adding insult to injury, Néstor Girolami – the sole Honda driver to proceed out of Q1 – was then comfortably slowest out of the 12 cars in Q2.
The five drivers to make the Q3 cut were Urrutia, Ehrlacher, Nathanaël Berthon, Thed Björk and Jean-Karl Vernay.
Vernay was the first to attempt his single flying lap, but slid wide at the first corner and immediately bailed out.
Ehrlacher then put in a solid lap, which proved enough to fend off serious subsequent attacks from Berthon and team-mate Björk.
Urrutia was the last of the quintet to make his lap, and did not crack under the pressure, laying down the fastest time of the meeting with a 2:13.471.
With Urrutia having also set the pace in Q1, albeit by just 0.006s from Vernay, that leaves the Uruguayan on pole twice this weekend.
Meanwhile, out-going champion Norbert Michelisz will join Muller on the front row in the reverse-grid Race 2, with fellow Hungarian Bence Boldizs coming tantalisingly close to reverse pole – lapping just 0.033s slower than Muller for P11 in Q2.
