Lopez tops Citroen's podium in the race 1
The winner of the first World Touring Car Championship race at Nurburgring is Jose Maria Lopez who was at the top from start to finish.
It was action packed start of the race after Michelisz had a contact with Valente, while Mehdi Bennani moved up seven places. Lopez stayed on the top followed by his teammates Loeb and Muller who jumped from sixth. There was also some confusion at the back of the grid which resulted with Rob Huff’s and soon later Tom Coronel’s withdrawal from the race.
After first lap Lopez was at the top with 1.736 seconds advantage in front of Loeb, while Muller was third with a gap of 3.197 seconds. Valente was in attempt to move up from ninth, but he lost control of his Chevrolet, slided out of the track and hit in the wall of tyres. Michelisz was on fourth place, chased by Gabriele Tarquni and Ma Qing Hua and it was very intense battle.
In the halfway of the second lap light ran has started which added more excitement, even everything was settled for Citroens-only podium. Home crowd cheered for local hero Sabine Schmitz to move into the points zone in her debut n the WTCC and she did it, partly thankfully to Tiago Monteiro’s withdrawal.
Argentinian ace first past through finish line with an advantage of 4.930 seconds, Sebastien oeb finished second while Yvan Muller kept third place even he started to lose pace in the last lap. Fourth was Norbert Michelisz, Ma Qing Hua finished fifth, while Gabriele Tarquini was sixth. Bennani stayed seventh, Stefano D’Aste was very solid finishing eighth as well as Tom Chilton on ninth.
