1st Race: Victory for Andy Priaulx
Andy Priaulx claimed his second World Touring Car victory of the season with a hard-fought win in a torrential first race of the day at Okayama.
A downpour half an hour before the start meant the race had to be started behind the safety car. When it peeled off at the end of the second lap, Priaulx inherited the lead almost immediately when pole-sitter and championship leader Gabriele Tarquini let his car drift too wide on the approach to Turn 2, Williams Corner, and slid wide across the grass.
Priaulx, who only missed out on pole by 0.050s in qualifying yesterday, needed no further invitation to stake his claim on the race. He and fellow BMW driver Jorg Muller moved away at the front, while third-placed Jordi Gene made a mistake and fell behind Rob Huff, and then slowed to sacrifice himself for his SEAT team-mates.
Huff was left to chase the BMWs from a distance, but Priaulx and Muller were left to contest the race between themselves in the closing stages.
Priaulx’s car dropped off towards the end as he struggle with fading brakes. Muller closed in with three laps to go and attack him doggedly to the finish. There was plenty of powersliding and a bit of door banging, as Muller attacked at the hairpin and again at Redman Corner, but the team-mates kept it clean and Priaulx survived the final turns to clinch his 12th career WTCC win.
Yvan Muller was gifted fourth place by title rival Tarquini’s first lap off, and Gene’s sacrifice, while Tarquini himself recovered to fifth past Tiago Monteiro and Gene to minimise the loss to Muller.
Augusto Farfus continued the habit of his season by recovering from an incident on the first lap to take eighth place and pole position for race two. This time the Brazilian followed Tarquini wide at Williams Corner and dropped to 14th.
As he approached the top 10 he came across a battle for eighth already in full flow, between independent championship leader Tom Coronel, the Lada of James Thompson and the Chevrolet of Alain Menu.
Menu and Farfus made their way ahead of Thompson and Coronel and engaged each other in a heated scrap to the end. They touched several times before Farfus threw his car down the inside of Menu at Mike Knight Corner. There was contact when Menu turned in an the Chevrolet was punted wide over the grass, giving the place to Farfus.
Coronel completed the top 10 , with Thompson 11th and Nicola Larini 12th. Coronel’s nearest class rival was Felix Porteiro in 14th, who survived a late duel for the place when Stefano D’Aste spun off on the last lap.
Here are the standings of this race:
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Andy Priaulx BMW 32m18.887s 2. Jorg Muller BMW 0.484s 3. Rob Huff Chevrolet 2.552s 4. Yvan Muller SEAT 12.066s 5. Gabriele Tarquini SEAT 15.757s 6. Jordi Gene SEAT 17.131s 7. Tiago Monteiro SEAT 18.693s 8. Augusto Farfus BMW 25.403s 9. Alain Menu Chevrolet 28.163s 10. Tom Coronel SEAT 30.133s 11. James Thompson Lada 30.693s 12. Nicola Larini Chevrolet 32.217s 13. Jaap van Lagen Lada 40.278s 14. Felix Porteiro BMW 50.587s 15. Alex Zanardi BMW 55.891s 16. Kirill Ladygin Lada 57.180s 17. Seiji Ara BMW 58.480s 18. Tom Boardman SEAT 1m05.796s 19. Kristian Poulsen BMW 1m09.905s 20. Norbertu Taniguchi BMW 1m15.829s 21. Masaki Kano BMW 1m28.415s 22. Joao Paulo de Oliveira SEAT 1m29.405s 23. Henry Ho BMW 1m53.615s 24. Stefano D'Aste BMW +1 lap 25. Rickard Rydell SEAT +2 laps DNF.Franz Engstler BMW 3 laps completed DNF. Sergio Hernandez BMW 2 laps completedfonte: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/79928
2nd Race: Augusto Farfus leads BMW 1-2
Augusto Farfus kept his slim World Touring Car title chances alive with his fifth win of the season in Sunday’s second wet race at Okayama.
Farfus made a sound getaway from pole and had BMW team-mate Andy Priaulx riding shotgun for him – from eighth on the grid – by the exit of the first corner, thanks to carnage off the line.
Jorg Muller’s fast starting BMW shot up to the front off the line and he tried to move inside Tiago Monteiro’s SEAT for second place on the main straight. Monteiro squeezed Muller onto the wet grass, where the German lost control of his car and speared into the side of the SEAT. Muller was later given a drive-through penalty for his part in the incident.
Both cars spun off at the first corner, taking the SEATs of Jordi Gene and championship leader Gabriele Tarquini with them. Countless cars then flew off the road in all directions at the treacherous Turn 2, where aqua-planing was a problem all day.
That left a jumbled order at the end of the first lap, with Priaulx second, Tarquini’s main title rival Yvan Muller surviving in third and Alain Menu – who had only missed out on the race two pole in the final corners of race one – up to fourth from eighth. Felix Porteiro was fifth, ahead of Jaap van Lagen, Stefano D’Aste, James Thompson, Tom Boardman, Nicola Larini and Kristian Poulsen.
The best of the charges back to the front came from Rickard Rydell, who peaked at seventh (from 13th) and Rob Huff, who made it up to sixth from 17th.
Farfus and Priaulx ran a controlled race up front – the only drama coming when Poulsen spun his car in front of the lead pack on the main straight.
Muller was grateful just to take a handful of points back from Tarquini in third, with Menu unable to make any impression on him from behind.
Jordi Gene had escaped the first corner in fifth, but carried damage with his rear bumper falling off during the race. The Spaniard once again played a team role and gave away four places – two to Chevrolets – in the last two laps to allow Tarquini through.
Rydell also moved over to give Tarquini two points for seventh, behind the Cruzes of Larini and Huff.
D’Aste claimed the independent class win in 10th after Tom Coronel was delayed by the spate of off-road excursions at Turn 2 on the first lap, and Porteiro went backwards from his early fifth to 11th. Coronel finished 13th, behind the BMW of Sergio Hernandez.
Lada had looked to be in for a good points haul with van Lagen sixth and Thompson eighth, but both pulled into the pits to retire within a lap of each other.
The charity of his team-mates means Tarquini is two points ahead of Muller heading to the season finale in Macau, with Farfus a further 11 back.
Here are the results of this race:
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Augusto Farfus BMW 26m55.015s 2. Andy Priaulx BMW 0.761s 3. Yvan Muller SEAT 3.298s 4. Alain Menu Chevrolet 5.878s 5. Nicola Larini Chevrolet 13.725s 6. Rob Huff Chevrolet 17.538s 7. Gabriele Tarquini SEAT 24.104s 8. Rickard Rydell SEAT 26.212s 9. Jordi Gene SEAT 27.272s 10. Stefano D'Aste BMW 35.619s 11. Felix Porteiro BMW 36.900s 12. Sergio Hernandez BMW 37.866s 13. Tom Coronel SEAT 41.110s 14. Joao Paulo de Oliveira SEAT 49.317s 15. Tom Boardman SEAT 58.394s 16. Franz Engstler BMW 1m03.206s 17. Jorg Muller BMW 1m07.306s 18. Alex Zanardi BMW 1m10.579s 19. Seiji Ara BMW 1m18.816s 20. Masaki Kano BMW 1m40.690s DNF.Jaap van Lagen Lada 9 laps completed DNF.James Thompson Lada 8 laps completed DNF.Henry Ho BMW 6 laps completed DNF.Kristian Poulsen BMW 6 laps completed DNF.Norbertu Taniguchi BMW 3 laps completed DNF.Tiago Monteiro SEAT 0 laps completedin: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/79929
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