Yvan Muller grabs pole for Sochi season finale
Yvan Muller mastered challenging conditions at the Sochi Autodrom to grab the final pole position of the 2021 World Touring Car Cup season.
Although no longer raining, drivers were faced with tricky conditions when they hit the track for the opening phase of qualifying to determine which twelve drivers would make it through to Q2 and be in contention for the two pole positions on offer.
The field elected to run on wet tyres with Muller setting the be benchmark time of 2:31.111 to lead the way in the Lynk & Co ahead of team-mate Santiago Urrutia and the Cupra of Rob Huff going into the closing moments of the 20 minutes of running as some drivers gambled on trying slick rubber.
Amongst them was the Audi of Frédéric Vervisch but it was quickly apparent that the conditions were too wet, leaving him at risk of dropping out of qualifying at the first hurdle.
On the final laps of the session, Azcona improved to hit the front only to then be overhauled once again by Muller as the French veteran went three-tenths of a second quicker to grab the maximum points on offer, with Azcona, Urrutia, Huff and Nathanaël Berthon grabbing the bonus points that were on offer.
Vervisch was able to improve on his final lap to sneak through into Q2 with the tenth best time with Néstor Girolami also sneaking in by just 0.030s although Thed Björk and the soon-to-retire Gabriele Tarquini would both miss out on going any further.
Yann Ehrlacher set the benchmark time on the first run in Q2 but both Muller and Gilles Magnus – who had earlier paced FP1 – would gamble on pitting rather than putting in a time on the first lap to give them one shot at making it through to Q3.
With Ehrlacher quickest from Berthon, Girolami, Azcona and Guerrieri, it all came down to whether Muller and Magnus could make their single lap count to grab a place in the fight for pole.
As light rain started to fall once again, Muller was able to pop in the fourth best time to secure a place in the fight for race two pole, with Guerrieri missing out as a result by just 0.001s.
Magnus was only able to take tenth spot, although that means the Audi driver will start race one from the reverse grid pole alongside fellow Audi driver Vervisch, with Vernay and Huff on the second row of the grid. Urrutia and Norbert Michelisz would be the pair who missed out on the top ten.
With rain reported to be increasing in the pits, Ehrlacher went against the norm by electing to run first in Q3 and set the target time of 2:31.887s, which was slower than he had managed in Q2 by more than a second.
Berthon was out next in the Audi and went quicker in the first sector by more than two tenths of a second and extended his advantage over the points leader to nearly a second by the end of sector two – eventually going more than 1.6s better than Ehrlacher to set a new benchmark.
Muller then went faster still to break the 2:30s barrier and go six-tenths quicker than Berthon, with just Azcona and Girolami left to run.
Although fastest of all in the second sector of the lap, Azcona had to settle for the second quickest time behind Muller, with Girolami setting the best final sector but having to settle for third spot.
After missing both practice sessions after falling ill, Tiago Monteiro failed to appear on track for qualifying.
The first race of the weekend starts at 12:15 local time/10:15 CET tomorrow.
