Coming into the event José María López was leading the drivers' championship by ten points over teammate Yvan Muller.

An off for Tom Coronel sent the ROAL Motorsport driver through the gravel while Huff continued to have technical problems but managed to set the 14th fastest time.

Proteam Racing's Mehdi Bennani failed to set a time after technical problems prevented him from getting out onto the track for most of the session.

Sébastien Loeb almost failed to progress through to the second session when his car required attention in the pits having only set a banker lap on used tyres.

López was back at the top of the timing sheets in second part of qualifying, a session which was disrupted by a red flag.

By the second lap Loeb and López were breaking away from the rest of the field with the third Citroën of Muller chasing Michelisz briefly before he went into the pits to serve a drive–through penalty for a jump start.

Borković then had another off on lap four, going through the gravel and pulling part of the rear bumper on his Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 off in the process.

[9] The heavy rain meant the medical helicopter was unable to take off and the fading light were contributing factors to the decision.