Two kings for the crown: Huff, Muller share the front row

It is already a tradition. Ever since Macau joined the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) circus, the competition’s title fight always goes to the wire in the territory’s dramatic final act.
This year is no different as the fight for the drivers’ world championship will have an exciting showdown tomorrow after Chevrolet team-mates and title contenders Rob Huff and Yvan Muller both qualified on the front row for Sunday’s first race.
The most suited candidate for the title is Yvan Muller, who would retain his crown. With only two races to go in the season, the Frenchman now has a third title well within his sights.
Muller has built a 20-point advantage with 50 still to be awarded, but team-mate Rob Huff claimed his fourth pole position of the season in yesterday’s second qualifying session.
Huff, who has claimed three race victories on the Guia tarmac, was in brilliant form throughout the session to take the top spot on the grid for the first race. Having edged out rival Muller in the first run in the second qualifying session, Huff pushed extra hard on his second lap, and fought the pain barrier after suffering cramps, to secure pole by 0.268 seconds.
“It was a great result, I’m very pleased to be on pole position again after so long. And now I’m in the best position to fight for the championship,” Huff said.
“On my last lap I was on the way to improve again, but I got cramps and had to stop before the hairpin. I believe this happened because of the long wait inside the car for the session to be resumed,” the Briton added.
Muller admitted that with Chevrolet being so quick around Macau, and him holding a 20-point lead over Huff in the standings, he had elected not to take too many risks when it came to the qualifying session.

‘It was a great result, I’m very pleased to be on pole position again after so long. And now I’m in the best position to fight for the championship’ 

- Rob Huff

“In my position I had no reasons to take risks. The second place was good enough as all I need is to finish behind Rob on Sunday. However, I will not start from a good position in Race 2, and this could be a problem because overtaking here is not easy,” Muller said.
Gabriele Tarquini took third in his Lukoil SEAT with his final lap of the session, to finish ahead of Darryl O’Young in the Chevrolet and Tom Coronel in the BMW.
Local driver André Couto in a SEAT Leon 1.6T finished 7th fastest, 3.482 seconds off Huff’s time and behind Mehdi Bennani in a BMW.
Franz Engstler had already secured pole position for tomorrow’s second FIA WTCC race, after finishing tenth in the first part of qualifying. He will start that race ahead of Michel Nykjaer, Huff, Tom Coronel and Tarquini.
Chevrolet driver Alain Menu had an unlucky session, after an on-track incident with local driver André Couto in the closing stages of Q1 resulted in him failing to make it through to the second qualifying session. He ended up 13th.

The second qualifying session was red flagged early on after Robert Dahlgren crashed his Volvo heavily into the barriers at the Solitude Esses – with the car briefly bursting into flames. The Swedish driver climbed out of the wreckage but had hurt his arm.
Early in the day, the first qualifying session was also brought to a premature end when Freddy Barth crashed his SEAT car at the fast Paiol bend. The impact left the Swiss driver unconscious inside his car, with the vehicle on fire. Marshals and firemen intervened quickly, managing to extricate Barth and extinguish the flames.
Neither Barth nor Dahlgren suffered serious injuries but will be forced to miss Sunday’s races.