Audi cars lock the two front rows, with Shedden on pole

Gordon Shedded claimed his first pole position in WTCR and will lead an Audi quartet at the start of this afternoon’s Race 3 at Wuhan Street Circuit.
The Scotsman drove his Leopard Lukoil Team Audi RS3 LMS to post the fastest lap in Q2 and then repeated in Q3 with the time of 1:22.776 that gave him the pole ahead of Comtoyou Racing’s teammates Frédéric Vervisch (1:22.825) and Denis Dupont (1:22.959). Jean-Karl Vernay – pole sitter and winner in yesterday’s Race 1 – did not make a spotless lap and qualified fourth in the second Leopard Lukoil car (1:23.022), while Esteban Guerrieri ranked fifth in the Münnich Motorsport Honda Civic (1:23.744).
Halfway through the 30-minute Q1 there were six Audi cars on top of the timesheet, eventually Ma Qing Hua’s Honda (2^nd), Kevin Ceccon’s Alfa Romeo (6^th) and Esteban Guerrieri’s Honda (7^th) disrupted the group of the RS3 LMS cars. Vernay posted the fastest lap of 1:22.824, followed by Ma (1:22.963), Panis (1:22.968), Dupont (1:23.040) and then Vervisch, Ceccon, Guerrieri, Berthon, Shedden, Comte, Bennani and Oriola.
The final moments were plenty of drama to make the cut for Q2: Björk kicked Tarquini off, Muller kicked Huff off, Oriola kicked Muller off and Bennani kicked Björk off. Huff was 13^th, twelve thousandths behind Oriola. The top twelve were covered by half-a-second and the top-21 by less than nine tenths.
Leopard Lukoil teammates Shedden (1:22.498) and Vernay (1:22.718) topped the Q2 ahead of Comtoyou colleagues Vervisch (1:22.826) and Dupont (1:22.960); Guerrieri’s Honda (1:23.007) was the only non-Audi car to make it to Q2. Oriola spun and crashed at the end of his last lap while trying to improve his seventh position.
Bennani qualified tenth and won pole position for Race 2; he set the same lap time of Panis (1:23.148) that was classified 11^th because has clocked it later.
Races 2 and 3 will start at 15:45 and 17:05 local time (09:45 and 11:05 CET).