Alain Menu won his third pole position of the season, the second in a row, and gave Chevrolet the points needed to clinch a third consecutive WTCC Manufacturers title.
With most of the attention focusing on Tiago Monteiro and the Honda Civic on their first appearance in the World Championship, the Chevrolet team managed to steal the limelight putting in another amazing performance.
Menu and his team-mates Yvan Muller and Rob Huff monopolized the first three positions, and Alex MacDowall and his bamboo-engineering Cruze car provided the icing on the cake by qualifying in fourth. Which also meant pole position in the Yokohama Trophy for the young Englishman.
An impressive Mehdi Bennani emerged as the best of the rest in fifth, with his Proteam Racing BMW 320 TC, while Gabriele Tarquini the fastest of the SEAT drivers and Tom Coronel qualified sixth and seventh.
As for Monteiro, he qualified 11th after using all the new sets of tyres to win a place in Q2. However, on his last attempt in Q1, Monteiro had showed that the Civic has a potential, as he was able to set the seventh fastest lap and advance to Q2. A brilliant result considering that the Japanese car moved its first steps less than three months ago.
Stefano DAste and Pepe Oriola qualified tenth and ninth, meaning that they will start from the front row on the reversed grid for Race 2.
Suzuka East Circuit – 19 / 21 October 2012
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