ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel took victory in the 200th race of the World Touring Car Championship at Suzuka, beating Proteam Racing’s Mehid Bennani to his fourth career victory.
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Dutchman Coronel started second on the grid with fellow BMW driver Mehdi Bennani and the two of them pulled away from the two Castrol Honda’s, with Gabriele Tarquini leading team-mate Tiago Monteiro.
The opening nine laps saw the main overtaking opportunity denied after Yvan Muller and race one victor Norbert Michelisz collided; the RML Chevrolet driver ended his race in the wall while the Hungarian was able to drag the #5 Zengo Motorsport Honda Civic around to the pits and into retirement.
Despite the battling between the two BMW’s, they were able to pull away from the chasing pack, which was being led by Tarquini until he allowed Monteiro past to try and chase down the BMWs.
Coronel finally took the lead from the Moroccan on lap 17 after the Proteam Racing driver ran wide at turn one and Coronel took the opportunity, with the Dutchman being able to pull away and win by 2.259s.
Monteiro trailed in a further 7.676s behind with Tarquini closing back in on his team-mate, while James Nash in the bamboo engineering Chevrolet Cruze rounded out the top five.
The sole remaining RML Chevrolet of Tom Chilton finished sixth ahead of Charles Kaki Ng in the Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMW 320TC – for Ng, it is his best result to-date in the WTCC.
ALL-INKL.com Münnich Motorsport drivers Rob Huff and Marc Basseng finished 8th and 9th with Stefano D’Aste, winner at Suzuka in 2012, rounding out the top 10. LADA’s James Thompson had been running ninth until the final lap where he dropped back to finish 12th.
Masaki Kano finished as the best of the Japanese drivers and the WTCC Asia trophy entrants in 16th with the best of the normally aspirated runners, Jeronimo Badaraco finishing 18th overall in the Son Veng Racing Team Chevrolet Cruze.
With four races left of the 2013 World Touring Car Championship, new champion Yvan Muller leads the way by 149 points from Tarquini, with Chilton, Nash and the absent Nykjaer rounding out the Championship top five.
Nash holds a 16 point advantage in the Yokohama Independents’ over Nykjaer and a 32 point lead over team-mate MacDowall heading to Shanghai over the 3rd/4th November.