FARFUS TAKES FIRST POLE FOR BMW
Augusto Farfus claimed the first pole position of the season for BMW with a lap time of 2:00.672, one year on from his last pole position at Brno. The Brazilian will line up alongside Chevrolet’s Rob Huff (2:00.697) on the front row with BMW Team RBM fellow driver Andy Priaulx in third (2:00.807)
Top rookie Norbert Michelisz (2:01.731) will start eighth overall with bamboo-engineering scoring a 1-2 in the Independents‘ class with Darryl O’Young (2:02.186) finishing 12th overall, ahead of team mate Harry Vaulkhard (2:02.384) in 14th.
Q1 – As the 20-minute session began, Huff took provisional pole for Chevrolet as most of the field headed out for their first runs. Huff had a 0.436-second lead at the halfway point but as the cars completed their second sets of laps, Tarquini edged ahead with a time of 2:00.690.
Sergio Hernández’s problems continued into qualifying as the Proteam Motorsport crew worked on his car for a large part of Q1. He eventually got on track to record a quickest time of 2:04.260 but down in 20th.
Franz Engstler spun at the second chicane early in the session before running wide later on at the second Lesmo.
The top ten going forward into Q2 was Tarquini, Huff, Muller, Monteiro, Priaulx, Michelisz, Menu, Farfus, Barth and Gené.
Q2 – In the ten minute shootout the field of ten cars stayed close together on the high speed Italian track as team work and slipstreaming is crucial to getting a good grid position.
On the first lap out Tarquini and Barth both ran wide kicking up the dirt at the second Lesmo. Farfus took the provisional pole position which he then never relinquished. After the first two runs Farfus led from Huff and Priaulx with Priaulx also running wide at the second Lesmo. The top drivers didn’t improve on their final run leaving Menu (2:00.899) fourth from Muller (2:01.078), Gené (2:01.400) and Tarquini (2:01.544).
Norbert Michelisz lost time with the cars running wide at the Lesmos ahead of him, but still posted a time of 2:01.731 to start tomorrow’s race eighth and top rookie. Fredy Barth (2:01926) will start ninth with Tiago Monteiro (2:01.927) rounding out the top ten.
GRID PENALTY FOR TIAGO MONTEIRO
SR-Sport driver Tiago Monteiro posted the 10th fastest lap in today’s qualifying. However he will start from the 15th spot on the grid for tomorrow’s Race 1 at Monza.
The Portuguese driver was handed a 5-grid position penalty for repeatedly cutting the first chicane and improving his lap time during the Q1 session.