AT THE CHALLENGING VALENCIA TRACK

Menu 6th, Huff 8th And Larini 10th In Today’s Qualifying

For their first qualifying session at a European traditional circuit, the three Cruzes managed to secure a place for themselves in the top ten, a result that pleased the Chevrolet team, as the twisty and fast track of Valencia is not the best-suited to the characteristics of the Cruze.

The two free practice sessions allowed the Chevrolet drivers to work fruitfully on the balance of the car, while Q1 ended with Menu 5th, Larini 7th and Huff 10th. In the ten-minute decisive Q2 session, things changed little, with Menu finishing 6th in the day’s ranking, Huff 8th and Larini 10th, in a sunny and warm afternoon. This puts the three Cruzes in an interesting position to score points tomorrow, especially in race 2.

• QUOTESAlain Menu (6th):

 “I am pretty happy with my result today, the car felt well and I had almost acompletely clean lap in my fastest run, so I don’t think we could have done any better today.Tomorrow, I expect two tough races, as we have some very fast cars behind us”.Rob Huff (8th): «It is a good result for the team, and I am satisfied with my time. I made a littlemistake on my fastest lap, but I don’t think I lost more than one tenth, so it is fair to say that thingswouldn’t have been much different”.

Nicola Larini (10th):

“Based on what I could do in the previous sessions, I was aiming at 5th or 6thposition, but unfortunately the set of new tires I put on in Q2 did not perform as well, I don’tunderstand why”.

Mark Busfield:

“We are pleased to see the three Cruzes in the top ten at this circuit, and we reallytook the best we could out of this qualifying session. Knowing that the characteristics of this tracksuit our competitors well, and that we have the heaviest cars here following our successes inMarrakech and Pau, we couldn’t possibly have done any better. Tomorrow, it will be closely-foughtraces, we will aim at staying in the points in race 1 and be in a good position for race 2”.

VALENCIA QUALIFYING RESULTS

1. G Tarquini SEAT León TDI 1m44s4142. Y Muller SEAT León TDI + 0s2323. J Gené SEAT León TDI + 0s4144. T Monteiro SEAT León TDI + 0s4825. A Farfus BMW 320si + 0s6666. A Menu Chevrolet Cruze + 0s9008. R Huff Chevrolet Cruze + 1s02610. N Larini Chevrolet Cruze + 1s288