WTCC / Slovakia: Tarquini leads a Lukoil double

Gabriele Tarquini was able to avoid problems to quickly climb to the front while Robert Huff was already involved in a collision with the Ford Focus S2000 of James Nash and the SR Leon of Tiago Monteiro in the first laps. The Portuguese and the Briton retired following the accident. The Italian, for his part, managed to take the lead of the race on the third lap by taking advantage of the pole sitter. Aleksei Dudukalo also took the advantage over the BMW, leaving third place on the podium in sight for Yvan Muller.

But the reigning champion collided with the Hungarian who spun before returning to ninth place. The Frenchman was penalized with a drive-through for his maneuver and finished the race outside the points. Pepe Oriola gave a glimpse of a hat-trick for Seat, even taking advantage of an error from Aleksei Dudukalo to take second place. But it will ultimately be Alain Menu who will complete the podium, the Spaniard having suffered a puncture. Alberto Cerqui (BMW) fails at the foot of the podium in front of Stefano d?Aste (BMW), poleman of Race 2, Norbert Michelisz who moved up to sixth position after his spin, Darryl O?Young (Seat), Tom Coronel ( BMW), Tom Boardman (Seat) and Gabor Wéber (BMW).

Discover the report from the WTCC in Slovakia in the next issue of AUTOhebdo, available from Tuesday in digital version for iPad and from Thursday on newsstands.