Frenchman Yvan Muller took a dominant victory in the opening World Touring Car Championship race in Argentina, beating Spaniard Pepe Oriola and Brit Tom Chilton to his 34th career win.
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The first rolling start had to be aborted due to the field not being lnied up through their grid slots correctly. When the field got it right the second time, RML’s Muller got off to a strong start, whilst behind him Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz slipped into second position, ahead of Tom Chilton.
Michelisz would only hold on to second position for the first half of the race, however, as on lap five the Hungarian lost out to Chilton, Pepe Oriola and Michel Nykjær. Chilton and Oriola would continue battling for second until the Spaniard passed the Brit on lap seven to score only his second podium result of the season.
Chilton finished in third, ahead of a charging Honda of Gabriele Tarquini who was just a tenth behind at the chequered flag. The Honda driver had dropped to seventh on the opening lap, but worked his way back during the race.
Local driver José María López finished in a superb fifth overall in his first-ever WTCC race. The Argentinian stayed out of trouble throughout the race, and pulled a superb passing move on Michel Nykjær on the penultimate lap of the race.
Dane Nykjær finished in sixth, ahead of Michelisz who was unable to recover from his mid-race slide down the order. Rob Huff, James Nash and Tiago Monteiro completed the top ten, with the trio involved in an intense late-race battle which saw reigning champion Huff take eighth on the final lap of the race, having started down in 23rd.
The two LADAs of James Thompson and Mikhail Kozlovskiy failed to finish the race, with Kozlovskiy having collected damage to his left-rear wheel in a first-corner incident. Tom Coronel also retired, having had a difficult race which included a spin and a puncture.
Round 16 takes place at 20:20 BST (21:20 CEST; 16:20 ART).