SEAT FRONT ROW WITH MULLER-RYDELL AT WTCC OPENER

Yvan Muller placed his SEAT Le?n TDI on pole position following an eventful qualifying session in Curitiba, with a time of 1:24.295, the fastest time of the weekend so far and half a second faster than J?oerg Müller's pole from last year.

His SEAT Sport team-mate Rickard Rydell followed closely in second with a time of 1:24.404, and BMW Team Germany's Augusto Farfus qualified third, 0.187 behind the leader.

Gabriele Tarquini set the fourth fastest lap, completing SEAT's great day as the Spanish manufacturer occupied three of the top four positions, while Nicola Larini emerged as the fastest Chevrolet driver claiming the fifth spot.

Farfus' team-mate J?rg Müller clocked the sixth best lap and then failed to improve it when he spun near the end of the session in front of three other BMW cars (Farfus', Zanardi's and Porteiro's) who missed him by inches.

The action-packed qualifying began with some of the drivers not immediately joining the track. Once everyone was out Ibrahim Okyay ran wide at turn 9 and Olivier Tielemans spun at turn 3 but rejoined.

Seventeen minutes into the session Alain Menu came off the track at the last corner and his Chevrolet crashed into the wall. Menu escaped unharmed but shocked; the first checks at the tracks medical centre were all negative, but as a precaution he was transported to the closest hospital for scanner exam.

The session being red-flagged meant that Menu's team-mate Robert Huff and Farfus, amongst others, had to abort some very promising fastest laps.

Ten minutes later the qualifying resumed, but Müller's spin caused a yellow flag that prevented many drivers to improve further.

Larini was amongst those who succeeded and moved up to fifth.

Pierre-Yves Corthals qualified his Exagon Engineering SEAT on pole position in the independents' class with a time of 1:25.363, which was good for the 15th position overall.