Alain Menu held off a hard charging Colin Turkington for the win in the first race in China, as Rob Huff completed the podium to close the championship gap slightly on fourth-placed finisher Yvan Muller.
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In the Yokohama Independents battle, Liqui Moly Team Engstler Kristian Poulsen has extended his advantage over Zengo-Dension Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz after the latter dropped down the order and finished fifth in the Independents, while Poulsen finished second to Turkington and sixth overall.
At the start, the field managed to get through the first corner without any mishaps and in a generally stagnant race, with the Tianma circuit not promoting overtaking, it took Championship leader Muller a number of laps to work his way ahead of 2009 Champion Gabriele Tarquini in the Lukoil-SUNRED SR Leon 1.6T.
Once Muller got ahead of Tarquini, the top five drivers were able to break away as the Italian was holding the field up. Turkington was giving Huff things to think about as he looked to grab second from his fellow Brit, and on the tenth lap, Coronel had closed up on Muller and was looking to put his ROAL Motorsport BMW 320TC ahead of the #1 Chevrolet Cruze.
Turkington took P2 from Huff on lap fourteen out of twenty five at turn one after a late braking move and once ahead, he pulled away and started to close in on Menu.
Once Huff was down to third, it took Muller just four laps to move ahead of Michelisz and further around the lap, Coronel and Poulsen both moved ahead of the Hungarian driver and Michelisz was down to seventh.
The last few laps saw Turkington shadowing Menu for the lead but the Swiss driver didn’t give Turkington any opportunities to pass and the last lap saw any hopes which the 2009 British Touring Car Champion had of taking the lead disappear after bamboo engineering’s Yukinori Taniguchi hit the wall and break his Chevrolet Cruze’s suspension – he was trying to complete the final lap after contact the lap before while trying to lap Charlie Ng.
Both Menu and Huff closed the gap to Muller in the Championship – Huff sits just ten points behind Muller while Menu retains an outside chance of the title, as he sits sixth points behind with seventy five to race for.
Poulsen has extended his advantage to fifeteen points over Michelisz in the Yokohama Independents battle, and the results have seen seven become six for the title – SUNRED’s Pepe Oriola can no longer win the crown this season.
Fabio Fabiani has moved into the lead of the Jay-Ten Trophy after winning the class, and should be crowned Champion after the second Tianma race.