After the previous round in Mexico, Yvan Muller was tied at the top of the drivers' standings with SEAT Sport teammate Rickard Rydell.

The WTCC saw its first North African driver participate in an event when Mehdi Bennani joined the grid in an Exagon Engineering run SEAT León 2.0 TFSI.

[5] Chevrolet's Huff beat practice pace setters SEAT in qualifying to claim pole position, the first for the new Cruze car.

Despite setting the second fastest lap, Menu was demoted to 10th because the Stewards disallowed his Q2 qualifying times after his car did not restart following a mandatory visit to the weighing bay.

While Tiago Monteiro initially made claim to pole with a 1:51.086, Menu (1:50.271), Larini (1:50.723) and Huff (1:50.817) stole the top spots.

The end of the session saw Andy Priaulx miss his braking point at turn 1 and clash with Hernández who had come off his line to let Zanardi through.

Due to the fact he received external aid to restart, Priaulx was not permitted to take part in Q2 and therefore qualified ninth following Menu's penalty.

[6] Yvan Muller topped the warm–up session on Sunday morning with fellow SEAT drivers Gené second, Coronel third, Tarquini fourth and Monteiro fifth.

Farfus' team-mate Jörg Müller was the fastest BMW and his eighth place finish meant pole in Race 2.