Young Spanish driver Antonio García claimed his first pole position in a Touring car, and BMW’s first one in the current season, setting the fastest qualifying time today at the wheel of his Ravaglia Motorsport BMW 320i. García’s best lap was clocked in 2:11.620, which represented an impressive 1.5-second improvement compared to last year’s pole position set by Giovanardi in 2:13.144. 

The qualifying session was dominated by BMW drivers, who secured the first two rows on the starting grid for tomorrow’s Race 1. Dirk Müller (2:11.782), Andy Priaulx (2:12.001) and Fabrizio Giovanardi (2:12.077) were classified right behind García, relegating the first Alfa Romeo car, driven by Nicola Larini, to fifth place with a time of 2:12.239, which was only 0.6 tenths of a second behind the pole position. Jörg Müller and Gabriele Tarquini, who are currently sharing the Championship leadership with 36 points and were both carrying ballast onboard (30 kg and 40 kg respectively), qualified sixth and seventh, just ahead of Jordi Gené. The latter was impressive, driving his SEAT Toledo Cupra to a provisional pole position five minutes into the session, lapping in 2:12.377. It was the first time a SEAT was topping the time sheet; although a few moments later Gené was ousted by Larini’s. 

Halfway throught the session, Dirk Müller managed to steal the pole from Larini, but with nine minutes left, the Ravaglia Motorsport duo was able to drastically improve their lap times: García jumped into the pole, while Giovanardi moved up to third, behind Dirk Müller. The last change in the top positions came when Andy Priaulx ousted Giovanardi from third. 

After his triumph in Pergusa, which gave him a 30 kg ballast, Roberto Colciago experienced a difficult day; he only qualified 12th. Colciago was also outpaced by Duncan Huisman and Alessandro Balzan, who emerged as the fastest independent drivers, placing in 10th and 11th positions.

Nicola LARINI: “Despite I’m the best placed Alfa Romeo driver on the grid, I’m quite disappointed. The free practice sessions were both very good for me; I was fastest in the first and second in the second. I didn’t expect I had to fight so hard in qualifying, only to find myself in fifth position. I have to say that my second attempt was spoiled by a slower car, which forced me to drive off the lines; but that was not the real problem. We have a lot of understeer since we start pushing, and the consequence is that we can’t get the most out of the new tyres. Now the warm up becomes crucial for us. We have to find a good set up for the races or, at least, a compromise that could allow us to fight for the podium positions if not for winning. But with so many BMW cars ahead, it will be very difficult.” 

Gabriele TARQUINI: “I’m not unhappy with my qualifying result, particularly if I consider that Jörg Müller is only one spot ahead of me on the grid. We had a few handling problems with our cars and these problems are shown up by the handicap weight. If we don’t manage to change something before the races, it will be very hard to score points. We have done a meeting to plan some set up changes we’ll test tomorrow morning during the warm up. We’ll try different solutions on each of our three cars, and we’ll make the point afterwards.”