Andy Priaulx will line up on pole tomorrow after mastering his very last lap of the qualifying session. His time of 1:35.661 was 0.180 seconds better than James Thompson who qualified second for SEAT. Thompson's team-mate Rickard Rydell completed the top three whose times were all within two tenths of a second.

Three red flags disrupted the session. The first was caused by Diego Romanini's car being stranded in the gravel after 15 minutes. Six minutes later it was SEAT Sport's new addition, Florian Gruber who stopped on the track at the Shell Esses, bringing out the red flags again.

With three minutes remaining Maurizio Ceresoli crashed into a tyre wall and spectacularly spun across the track resulting in the third appearance of red flags. This left the field with one flying lap to show what they could do and the consequence was a frantic change of names at the top of the timesheet.


Gabriele Tarquini achieved the 4th best time to line up alongside Rydell on the second row. Alfa Romeo driver Augusto Farfus, who had been slightly off the pace in the practice sessions managed to pull out a successful lap to secure 5th on the grid. His team-mates Morbidelli and Tavano qualified 7th and 9th respectively.

Out of the Chevrolet team it was Nicola Larini who obtained the best grid position. His 1:36.687 lap placed him 12th for tomorrow's race. Current championship leader Yvan Muller failed to retain the provisional pole he had set before the third red flag and dropped to 8th.

Luca Rangoni of Proteam Motorsport provisionally qualified a brilliant 10th and best of the Independents, but due to an earlier engine change will be dropped ten positions on the grid. The same penalty applies to Peugeot Sport Denmark driver Jens Edman who moves down from 17th to 27th and last.