Tarquini avoids trouble to take pole

Date published : 01 May 2010 - 20:18:39

Gabriele Tarquini claimed pole position for Sunday's World Touring Car Championship round in Marrakech after an incident-packed stop-start qualifying session.

The red flag was out three times, bringing about almost 25 minutes of delays in total as both sessions were halted ahead of schedule.

But the experienced Italian kept his composure to produce a lap record of one minute 35.830 seconds in his SEAT Leon and top the timesheets by over half a second from Britain's Robert Huff.

The Chevrolet driver pipped Spaniard Jordi Gene to second, while Portugal's Tiago Monteiro was fourth as SEAT drivers dominated the top eight.

Only Huff and early leader Yvan Muller - fifth in another Chevrolet Cruze - managed to break that stranglehold as the Leons of rookies Michel Nykjaer and Fredy Barth followed either side of that of Tom Coronel.

Norbert Michelisz had been quickest in Q1 but brought an early end to the session by crashing at turn three and instigating a red flag. The Hungarian was unable to take his place in the second session and will start from 10th on the grid.

Alain Menu, Augusto Farfus and Andy Priaulx were among the big names who also failed to make it through, and there was further drama to follow.

Franz Engstler slammed into a wall at turn two, making for a lengthy stoppage to clear up spilt oil and forcing the German out of the action. He will nevertheless start as the leading independent in ninth place.

Tarquini set his lap record soon after the resumption and Huff clocked 1:46.364 to jump from sixth place to second shortly before a crash for Nykjaer brought a frenetic day's activity to a close.