Brands Hatch specialist Alain Menu led a Chevrolet 1-2 in this afternoon's World Touring Car qualifying session for the British round of the championship.

Menu and his RML team-mate Rob Huff each produced a tremendous lap in the dying seconds of Q2 to pinch the front row from their rival BMWs, which had set the pace throughout practice.

BMW drivers Andy Priaulx and Augusto Farfus sat atop the timesheet after their second flying laps of the Q2 shootout, but the Chevrolets improved their practice times by seven tenths of a second to steal the show in qualifying.

Menu, who has won one WTCC race at Brands for the last three years, dipped into the 1m33.5s to set the fastest time of the weekend so far.

Priaulx and Farfus will share the second row for tomorrow's rolling start, just ahead of the SEATs of Rickard Rydell and Gabriele Tarquini. Nicola Larini, Jorg Muller, Tiago Monteiro and guest independent SEAT driver Norbert Michelesz complete the top 10 as the other drivers to take part in Q2.

Farfus, who had gone quickest in both practice sessions this morning, only just squeezed into Q2, setting the quickest time of Q1 on the last lap of the session, knocking out championship leader Yvan Muller in the process.

The Volvo of Robert Dahlgren, leading independents Felix Porteiro and Tom Coronel and works drivers Sergio Hernandez and Jordi Gene were among the others to miss out on a place in Q2 as half a second covered second to 14th places in the first round of qualifying.