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Yvan Muller leads Chevrolet formation in first Curitiba World Touring Car Championship race

Yvan Muller extended his lead in the World Touring Car Championship with a lights-to-flag victory in the opening race at Curitiba

The Frenchman's sixth win of the season came d in a close but processional race as the factory RML-run Chevrolets locked out the podium.

Front-row starter Alain Menu tucked in behind Muller away from the rolling start. The third RML Cruze of Rob Huff completed the blue works Cruze train, which thereafter circulated in close formation and was covered by less than a second at the finish.

Gabriele Tarquini made use of his Lukoil SEAT Leon WTCC's strength at rolling starts to pass Swedish series frontrunner Michel Nykjaer away from the line. Once ahead, the 2009 world champion pulled out a three-second advantage over Nykjaer to complete a relatively quiet run to fourth.

As with the factory Chevrolet fight at the front, the Bamboo Engineering Cruzes produced a tightly contested in-house battle for fifth. Alex MacDowall shadowed Nykjaer to the chequered flag without threatening an overtaking attempt, the 50-minute window between Curitiba's two WTCC races prompting drivers to exercise caution.

Hong Kong racer Darryl O'Young took a fine seventh for Special Tuning ahead of Tom Coronel's highest-placed BMW in eighth.

Yokohama Drivers' Trophy frontrunners Norbert Michelisz and Pepe Oriola provided some welcome entertainment in their scrap for ninth. Oriola executed an opportunistic lunge on the Zengo BMW driver at the last corner on lap four, only to be knocked wide at Turn 1 by the Hungaroring winner on the following tour. Michelisz waited five laps before recovering the position cleanly on the pits straight.

Eighth-place qualifier Tiago Monteiro was an opening lap retirement after making contact with Italian Superstars champion Alberto Cerqui at Turn 6. Former grand prix driver Monteiro's Tuenti Racing SEAT was out immediately with broken suspension, while Cerqui later pitted to have his damage attended too by his ROAL Motorsport crew.

The opening laps were enlivened by Tom Boardman's spirited defence of his 13th position from a gaggle of BMWs and Fords. But the Briton was summoned for a drive-through penalty after being judged to have made an avoidable collision with Mehdi Bennani's Proteam BMW at Turn 7.

Muller still leads the drivers' standing on 274 points, 29 clear of second-placed Huff. Menu's second place brings the Swiss' total to 232, while Tarquini moves ahead of Coronel on 147 to the ROAL Motorsport driver's 144.

Results - 15 laps:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car               Time/Gap
 1.  Yvan Muller        Chevrolet            22m05.549s
 2.  Alain Menu         Chevrolet              + 0.398s
 3.  Rob Huff           Chevrolet              + 0.933s
 4.  Gabriele Tarquini  LukoilSEAT             + 2.767s
 5.  Michel Nykjaer     Bamboo Chevrolet       + 5.656s
 6.  Alex MacDowall     Bamboo Chevrolet       + 6.639s
 7.  Darryl O'Young     Special Tuning SEAT   + 13.850s
 8.  Tom Coronel        ROAL BMW              + 15.552s
 9.  Norbert Michelisz  Zengo BMW             + 15.721s
10.  Pepe Oriola        Tuenti SEAT           + 16.613s
11.  Fernando Monje     SUNRED SEAT           + 19.896s
12.  Aleksei Dudukalo   Lukoil SEAT           + 20.552s
13.  Mehdi Bennani      Proteam BMW           + 29.405s
14.  Charles Ng         Engstler BMW          + 31.621s
15.  Stefano D'Aste     Wiechers BMW          + 31.675s
16.  James Nash         Arena Ford            + 35.093s
17.  Tom Chilton        Arena Ford            + 35.411s
18.  Franz Engstler     Engstler BMW          + 38.976s

Retirements:

     Tom Boardman       Special Tuning SEAT     13 laps
     Alberto Cerqui     ROAL BMW                 9 laps
     Tiago Monteiro     Tuenti SEAT               1 lap

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