World Touring: Muller on top in Citroen pole battle

Yvan Muller wrestled his factory Citroen C-Elysee to a third World Touring Car Championship pole of the season in a closely contested qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps. The result gives Muller five important points towards his pursuit of championship-leading team-mate Jose Maria Lopez.

Citroen's three regular drivers were separated by just 0.191 second in the Q3 showdown.

Reigning champion Muller was the penultimate runner in the single-lap session, and spectacularly kicked up dust at the Pif-Paf en route to what would prove to be the pole time of 2m23.497s. Q2 pacesetter Lopez was the final competitor left to offer a response, but the triple TC2000 champion lost half a second immediately during a moment at Eau Rouge.

The remainder of the Argentinean's lap was clean, but Lopez was unable to claw back sufficient time to deny World Rally Championship legend Sebastien Loeb a place on the front row.

"I think the second sector in Q3 was my fastest of the weekend," said Muller, explaining where he found an edge over his Citroen teammates. "Also, I understand all three of us made mistakes at Radillon, we had a small steering issue in the compression, and I suppose my mistake was smaller than the others."

Hugo Valente produced a typically committed lap in his Campos Chevrolet, including running with all four wheels off the road on the exit of Stavelot, to qualify fourth. The Frenchman has been consistently the closest challenger to the three full-time Citroen drivers at Spa.

In only his second appearance of the season, Moscow race winner Ma Qing Hua in the fourth C-Elysee made a shock exit from qualifying in Q1.

Former champion Gabriele Tarquini was the only Honda driver to progress into Q3, having edged out factory JAS teammate Tiago Monteiro in Q2 by 0.018s.

Gianni Morbidelli earned the reverse-grid pole position for Munnich Motorsport after achieving the 10th fastest time in the second segment of qualifying. The former Formula 1 driver is also sharing a Mercedes SLS with team boss Rene Munnich in the French GT support race at Spa.