José María López got his pursuit of a third FIA World Touring Car Championship title off to a fine start by triumphing in qualifying for the WTCC JVCKENWOOD Race of France.
The Citroën driver set a time of 1m28.950s in the one-lap shootout of Q3, putting him 0. 263 seconds ahead of Honda’s Tiago Monteiro.
As the quickest driver in Q2, López’s team-mate Yvan Muller was the last driver to run in Q3 but the Frenchman ended up third.
Tom Coronel made it to Q3 in his RML-built Cruze and will line up fourth on the grid for the second race of the weekend even though he aborted his Q3 attempted. Fifth will be Nicky Catsburg, who was unable to make it out into Q3 in his LADA.
Thed Björk came close to getting Polestar into Q3 at the start of their first maiden full-time WTCC campaign. He had to make do with sixth but still made it five different cars in the top six in Q2. Norbert Michelisz was seventh for Honda in front of Citroën man Mehdi Bennani, the other Polestar-entered Volvo driver Fredrik Ekblom and new Honda signing Rob Huff. LADA pair Hugo Valente and Gabriele Tarquini will share row six on the grid for both of Sunday’s races.
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Car | Q1 time | Q2 time | Q3 time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1:29.345 | 1:29.434 | 1:28.950 |
| 2 | Tiago Monteiro | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 1:29.766 | 1:29.550 | 1:29.213 |
| 3 | Yvan Muller | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 1:29.765 | 1:29.263 | 1:29.262 |
| 4 | Tom Coronel | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1:29.991 | 1:29.625 | -:—.--- |
| 5 | Nicky Catsburg | LADA Sport | Lada | 1:29.457 | 1:29.669 | -:—.--- |
| — | ---------- | -------- | -------- | -------- | --------- | --------- |
| 6 | Thed Bjork | Polestar Cyan | Volvo | 1:29.789 | 1:29.733 | |
| 7 | Norbert Michelisz | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 1:30.208 | 1:29.958 | |
| 8 | Mehdi Bennani | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 1:29.967 | 1:30.021 | |
| 9 | Fredrik Ekblom | Polestar Cyan | Volvo | 1:30.109 | 1:30.221 | |
| 10 | Rob Huff | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 1:30.010 | 1:30.576 | |
| 11 | Hugo Valente | LADA Sport | Lada | 1:30.194 | 1:30.612 | |
| 12 | Gabriele Tarquini | LADA Sport | Lada | 1:29.900 | 1:30.875 | |
| — | ---------- | -------- | -------- | -------- | --------- | --------- |
| 13 | Tom Chilton | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 1:30.315 | ||
| 14 | Grégoire Demoustier | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 1:30.620 | ||
| 15 | John Filippi | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 1:30.985 | ||
| 16 | Rene Munnich | Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1:31.749 | ||
| 17 | Ferenc Ficza | Zengo | Honda | 1:44.836 | ||
| 18 | Daniel Nagy | Zengo | Honda | -:—.--- |