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Salzburgring WTCC: Gianni Morbidelli penalised, Yvan Muller on pole

Salzburgring fastest qualifier Gianni Morbidelli has been awarded a five-place post-qualifying grid penalty for Sunday's opening World Touring Car Championship race, handing pole position to Yvan Muller

Munnich Motorsport driver Morbidelli was judged by race officials to have set his fastest lap in the opening Q1 segment of the three-part qualifying session under a yellow flag.

As a result of the decision, Morbidelli loses his fastest Q1 time and is penalised five places on the race-one grid.

Morbidelli, who will now start from sixth place in the first encounter and fifth in the reversed-grid second race, believes the penalty is too harsh.

"I don't think this is a sporting decision," he said. "They could have taken off my Q1 fastest lap, considering my second best lap of the session was enough to be Q2. But this is a big penalty.

"It was [John] Filippi just parking before Turn 6. What can I do, pretend that I braked there? It was a straight and there was someone parking there. I cannot brake there in qualifying.

"We know the risk here and we know it is dusty when someone is going out and there can be problems with visibility. But there was no risk for someone parking there."

Revised race 1 grid:                        
                                            
Pos  Driver                Team/Car         
 1.  Yvan Muller           Citroen          
 2.  Sebastien Loeb        Citroen          
 3.  Tom Coronel           ROAL Chevrolet   
 4.  Jose Maria Lopez      Citroen          
 5.  Tom Chilton           ROAL Chevrolet   
 6.  Gianni Morbidelli     Munnich Chevrolet
 7.  Tiago Monteiro        Honda            
 8.  Mehdi Bennani         Proteam Honda    
 9.  Norbert Michelisz     Zengo Honda      
10.  Gabriele Tarquini     Honda            
11.  Rene Munnich          Munnich Chevrolet
12.  Dusan Borkovic        Campos Chevrolet 
13.  James Thompson        Lada             
14.  Robert Huff           Lada             
15.  Mikhail Kozlovskiy    Lada             
16.  Franz Engstler        Engstler BMW     
17.  John Filippi          Campos SEAT      
18.  Pasquale Di Sabatino  Engstler BMW     
                                            

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