Andy Priaulx has placed himself in the best possible position to retain his title - on pole, for the second consecutive year.

The Briton originally topped the timesheet with a 2:33.557 before improving it to 2:33.318 later in the session.

Dirk Müller will line up alongside his BMW companion on the front row of the grid, followed by SEAT Sport's Yvan Muller.

There were two red flags during the session. The first was due to Nicola Larini crashing his Chevrolet Lacetti into the wall at ‘R' bend.

On resuming there was a surge of drivers who improved their times. These included Duncan Huisman, Augusto Farfus, Fabrizio Giovanardi who eventually qualified 4th, 7th and 8th.



The action was not to stop there. James Thompson re-created the crash that Larini had suffered just minutes before and again the red flags were deployed.

As the session went underway for the third time the rain began and thus effectively ended the proceedings because almost no drivers improved their positions.

As a consequence of the events Rickard Rydell was only able to post two laps in the wet and therefore qualified 22nd.

The same bad luck also struck Chevrolet drivers Robert Huff and Alain Menu who only managed 20th and 21st.

Menu's misfortunes continued further as he will be demoted to the back of the grid due to the incident he had with Luca Rangoni in Istanbul.

Potential title contender Gabriele Tarquini qualified 9th while Jörg Müller, who is just one point off the championship lead qualified 5th.