James Nash took a dominant race two victory for bamboo-engineering in the second World Touring Car Championship race in Porto, taking victory from fellow Brit Rob Huff by a comfortable 5.624 seconds.
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Nash, who started the race from pole position, was not troubled at the front of the field throughout the race as he opened up a lead which at one stage stood at almost eight seconds. Nash’s second-ever WTCC victory moves him back into third in the driver’s championship.
“It’s unreal,” said Nash. “It didn’t feel dominant. We had to work really hard for it. Rob [Huff] was pushing quite hard early on and I made a few mistakes. But it was just about keeping the rhythm and Rob’s tyres looked like they went off and I knew as soon as they were disappearing he was going to hold the rest of them up.”
Münnich Motorsport’s Huff held on to finish in second, despite strong late-race pressure from Nika Racing’s Michel Nykjær. Huff had to defend heavily, and skipped the final chicane on lap five. Nykjaer finished third, his sixth podium of the season, to extend his lead over Gabriele Tarquini for second in the championship.
Pepe Oriola finished in fourth for Tuenti Racing, having battled throughout much of the race with James Thompson. The Spaniard finally found a way past on lap eight, having cut a chicane in an attempted pass a few laps earlier. Oriola benefited from a mistake by Marc Basseng at the turn three roundabout. Basseng held on to finish in fifth.
LADA’s Thompson held on to sixth, despite late-race pressure from Yvan Muller. The Frenchman even went into the back of the Brit on lap eight but was unable to find a way past and had to settle for seventh, his worst result of the season thus far.
ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel finished in eighth, ahead of RML’s Tom Chilton and Proteam’s Mehdi Bennani, who completed the top ten.
A difficult race for Honda meant that local driver Tiago Monteiro could only manage 11th, having started in 14th due to his qualifying problems. His team-mate Tarquini fared even worse, finishing 20th having started from the back of the grid as a result of his car being taken out of Parc Fermé at the end of race one.
Fredy Barth once again spun out of the race in the closing laps, whilst neither Norbert Michelisz nor Tom Boardman started the race as a result of damage sustained in race one.