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Suzuka WTCC: Tarquini gives factory Honda first win of 2014

Gabriele Tarquini provided relief to Honda after a troubled qualifying session by giving the factory team its first win of the season in the reversed-grid race at Suzuka

The Italian and JAS team-mate Tiago Monteiro struggled for performance on new tyres in qualifying and lined up tenth and eleventh on the grid for race one.

Crucially, Tarquini's position earned him pole for thee reversed-grid race, and the former WTCC champion was unchallenged to reward Honda with a home win.

"It is the right place to score a victory," said Tarquini, who saved two new tyres for the race to maximise his opportunity for success.

"Unfortunately it is only [Honda's] second victory of the year, but the pace was a much better showing than yesterday."

Dusan Borkovic became the first Serbian to stand on a world championship podium by taking second place. The Campos Chevrolet driver survived being tapped by the chasing Norbert Michelisz into Suzuka's final chicane on the opening lap.

Borkovic took to the escape road and continued with no apparent loss of pace to finish 2.6s ahead of Zengo Honda driver Michelisz at the chequered flag.

"I was afraid to make a mistake in the first laps, so I didn't want to push that hard," said Borkovic.

"Norbert was much quicker and because of that we touched a little bit. It was a normal racing accident."

Former Japanese Formula 3 and Formula Nippon champion Tom Coronel was kept busy in the closing laps as heavy pressure was applied from the Citroen trio of Yvan Muller, new champion Jose Maria Lopez and Sebastien Loeb.

Perhaps chastened after clouting Hugo Valente earlier in the race, Muller resisted any further bold overtaking efforts, and the Dutch veteran held his cool to take fourth.

Lopez had shoulder-rubbed his way past Loeb on the exit of Spoon earlier in the race, proving that overtaking on the Suzuka Grand Prix circuit was possible if a challenge.

Valente was knocked out of fifth place by Muller at the hairpin on lap four. The Campos driver had extended a small gap over Muller, but took an extremely wide line into the hairpin that invited a lunge from the number one C-Elysee.

Muller smacked into the rear of Cruze but emerged from a scramble of tyre smoke on the exit of the corner maintaining his position ahead of his two team-mates.

RESULTS - 11 LAPS:

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Gabriele Tarquini Castrol Honda WTC Team Honda 23m55.783s
2 Dusan Borkovic NIS Petrol by Campos Racing Chevrolet 1.725s
3 Norbert Michelisz Zengo Motorsport Honda 4.360s
4 Tom Coronel ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet 5.497s
5 Yvan Muller Citroen Total WTCC Citroen 6.116s
6 Jose Maria Lopez Citroen Total WTCC Citroen 6.346s
7 Sebastien Loeb Citroen Total WTCC Citroen 6.665s
8 Gianni Morbidelli All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport Chevrolet 14.062s
9 Tiago Monteiro Castrol Honda WTC Team Honda 14.791s
10 Tom Chilton ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet 15.104s
11 Rob Huff LADA Sport Lukoil Lada 16.916s
12 James Thompson LADA Sport Lukoil Lada 18.818s
13 Mikhail Kozlovskiy LADA Sport Lukoil Lada 26.036s
14 John Filippi Campos Racing SEAT 1m26.585s
15 Filipe Souza Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMW 1m50.307s
16 Rene Munnich All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport Chevrolet 2m21.310s
- Hugo Valente Campos Racing Chevrolet Retirement
- Henry Kwong Campos Racing SEAT Retirement
- Franz Engstler Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMW Retirement
- Mehdi Bennani Proteam Racing Honda Retirement

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS AFTER 22 OF 24 ROUNDS:

Pos Driver Points
1 Jose Maria Lopez 422
2 Yvan Muller 305
3 Sebastien Loeb 275
4 Tiago Monteiro 174
5 Norbert Michelisz 169
6 Gabriele Tarquini 167
7 Tom Coronel 148
8 Tom Chilton 144
9 Gianni Morbidelli 108
10 Mehdi Bennani 85


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