WTCC: Monteiro takes surprise home pole

Tiago Monteiro claimed a sensational home pole for the main World Touring Car Championship race in Vila Real after stringing together the cleanest lap in the final part of qualifying.

Portuguese Monteiro had looked the slowest of Honda's three drivers coming into the session, but produced a strong lap in the single-lap Q3 shootout, recording a 1m56.633s.

With none of the four drivers behind able to improve on that time, Monteiro claimed a famous third qualifying pole in the WTCC and his first since 2010, which he also secured in Portugal.

Citroen's Yvan Muller will line up alongside Monteiro in Sunday's second race, the Frenchman having missed out by 0.109 seconds on his Q3 lap, with he and Monteiro the only two drivers to put together error-free laps.

Norbert Michelisz was third-fastest in the second Honda Civic after brushing the wall on his Q3 attempt, one place ahead of teammate Rob Huff, who also made a mistake on his lap.

Huff was the last man with a shot at beating Monteiro, but ran far too deep at Turn 4 at the start of his effort, the two seconds he dropped as a result consigning the Briton to fourth.

Jose Maria Lopez will start fifth after a ragged qualifying hour, with the Argentinian failing to set a time in Q3.

After slamming the wall side-on and having a lap time deleted in Q2 Lopez squeezed his way into the final shootout session.

But having recorded the fastest second sector on his Q3 lap, the Argentinian's Citroen C-Elysee squirmed wide on the approach to the final roundabout, with Lopez nudging the tire barrier as he struggled to stop the car.

Lopez's Q2 effort just edged out Polestar's Thed Bjork, who had occupied the final Q3 spot for much of the second session in his Volvo S60 before Lopez's improvement.

Mehdi Bennani was seventh ahead of Sebastien Loeb Racing teammate Tom Chilton, while Nicky Catsburg dragged some speed from his Lada Vesta to claim ninth.

Like Lopez, Tom Coronel had laps disallowed in the second session but strung one clean lap together to wind up 10th-fastest, securing pole for the reversed-grid opening race.

Catsburg's effort aside, the session was a struggle for the Lada team just a fortnight after its all-conquering weekend at Moscow Raceway.

Laden with 70 kilograms (about 154 pounds) of success ballast, Catsburg was the only one of the manufacturer's three drivers to negotiate the first qualifying session, with Hugo Valente and Gabriele Tarquini both eliminated.

Valente was unable to dislodge teammate Catsburg from the final spot in the Q2 and will start both races from 13th, while Tarquini, who cited traffic and vibrations for his lowly showing, could only qualify 17th.

That left him ahead of Daniel Nagy, Zengo Motorsport's 18-year-old debutant.

Nagy managed nine laps in qualifying, having sat out Friday's test session and Saturday's second practice, as he bedded in the team's second Honda Civic.

CITROEN WINS MAC3

Lopez made amends for his Q3 error as he helped the Citroen team to victory in the MAC3 time trial, edging out Honda's effort by a quarter of a second.

With Gabriele Tarquini dropping off the back of the Lada train, the fight was effectively a two-horse race.

Honda appeared to have the edge at the start as Lopez, at the back of Citroen's train, came through the second split almost a second down on Michelisz's equivalent time for Honda.

That had changed by the end of the first lap though as the Citroen trio, bolstered by Chilton for a second race weekend in a row, edged ahead as Lopez closed on to the tail of Chilton's car.

That margin was edged out over the course of the second lap, with Lopez crossing the line 0.283s faster than Michelisz.

Originally on Autosport.com