Marrakech WTCC: Jose Maria Lopez leads all-Citroen top five
Jose Maria Lopez made the most of an excellent start to take his second win of the World Touring Car Championship season in Marrakech, as Citroen filled the top five
Lopez held off fast-starting team-mate Ma Qing Hua away from the lights and wasn't really challenged on his way to his 13th WTCC victory.
The reigning champion even set a lap quicker than his qualifying time on the penultimate lap of the race.
The battle for third was settled with four laps to go, as home favourite Mehdi Bennani handed back the position to team-owner Sebastian Loeb, after passing him off the track.
Bennani had dived down the inside of Loeb, but couldn't get his customer Citroen stopped and had to use the run-off at the corner exit.
He lapped consistently quicker than Loeb throughout the race, but couldn't find a way past the nine-time World Rally champion.
Yvan Muller - who starts race two on pole - put in a great recovery drive after starting eighth due to a driving standards penalty carried over from the season opener in Argentina.
He spent the first stint of the race stuck between the Hondas of Tiago Monteiro and Gabrielle Tarquini, and he finally found a way past Monteiro at Turn 5 on lap nine.
Monteiro managed sixth ahead of Tarquini, with Stefano D'Aste, Norbert Michelisz and Tom Chilton - who made contact with ROAL team-mate Tom Coronel on the first lap - rounding out the top 10.
RESULTS - 14 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 24m31.802s |
2 | Ma Qinghua | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 0.942s |
3 | Sebastien Loeb | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 4.492s |
4 | Mehdi Bennani | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 5.405s |
5 | Yvan Muller | Citroen Total WTCC | Citroen | 21.617s |
6 | Tiago Monteiro | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 22.986s |
7 | Gabriele Tarquini | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 23.410s |
8 | Norbert Michelisz | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | 24.799s |
9 | Stefano D'Aste | All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 26.904s |
10 | Rob Huff | LADA Sport Rosneft | Lada | 35.044s |
11 | James Thompson | LADA Sport Rosneft | Lada | 45.222s |
12 | Mikhail Kozlovskiy | LADA Sport Rosneft | Lada | 53.650s |
13 | John Filippi | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 54.397s |
14 | Tom Chilton | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1m00.552s |
15 | Hugo Valente | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 3 Laps |
- | Gregoire Demoustier | Craft-Bamboo Racing | Chevrolet | Retirement |
- | Tom Coronel | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | Retirement |
- | Dusan Borkovic | Proteam Racing | Honda | Withdrawn |
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