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Vila Real WTCC: Honda's Tiago Monteiro secures victory at home

Tiago Monteiro scored a famous World Touring Car Championship victory in Vila Real, winning the second race in front of his home Portuguese crowd ahead of Citroen's Yvan Muller

Monteiro secured pole for the main race in Saturday's qualifying session and led from lights-to-flag in his factory Honda Civic to clinch his ninth WTCC win, despite issuing fears about his engine.

After converting pole into a first lap lead, Monteiro struggled to shake off the Citroen of Muller - who had held his second away from the grid, ahead of Norbert Michelisz and Rob Huff in the second and third Civics.

Monteiro soon stabilised his lead, but gave the home crowd a fright when he reported that his engine had cut at the end of lap five.

Those fears were gradually allayed as Monteiro continued to reel off laps at the front, with the Portuguese eventually winning by 0.821 seconds from Muller.

Michelisz completed the podium despite getting a hurry-up nudge from team-mate Huff, who settled for fourth.

Jose Maria Lopez struggled to keep pace with the leading quartet and, despite catching the pack up midway through the race, eventually dropped 12s back from Huff in a subdued fifth in the second factory Citroen, just a second clear of Polestar's Thed Bjork.

Nicky Catsburg and Lada team-mate Hugo Valente both made strong getaways and secured seventh and ninth respectively, with Valente splitting Sebastien Loeb Racing drivers Mehdi Bennani and Tom Chilton.

RESULTS - 14 LAPS:

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Tiago Monteiro Honda Racing Team JAS Honda 27m53.321s
2 Yvan Muller Citroen Racing Citroen 0.821s
3 Norbert Michelisz Honda Racing Team JAS Honda 2.181s
4 Rob Huff Honda Racing Team JAS Honda 3.402s
5 Jose Maria Lopez Citroen Racing Citroen 16.164s
6 Thed Bjork Polestar Cyan Racing Volvo 17.374s
7 Nicky Catsburg LADA Sport Lada 17.904s
8 Mehdi Bennani Sebastien Loeb Racing Citroen 21.614s
9 Hugo Valente LADA Sport Lada 23.054s
10 Tom Chilton Sebastien Loeb Racing Citroen 23.364s
11 James Thompson Munnich Motorsport Chevrolet 28.125s
12 Gregoire Demoustier Sebastien Loeb Racing Citroen 33.547s
13 Gabriele Tarquini LADA Sport Lada 34.675s
14 John Filippi Campos Racing Chevrolet 47.223s
15 Ferenc Ficza Zengo Motorsport Honda 47.654s
16 Tom Coronel ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet 1 Lap
- Daniel Nagy Zengo Motorsport Honda Retirement
- Robert Dahlgren Polestar Cyan Racing Volvo Retirement

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS

Pos Driver Points
1 Jose Maria Lopez 244
2 Tiago Monteiro 143
3 Nicky Catsburg 139
4 Mehdi Bennani 134
5 Yvan Muller 133
6 Norbert Michelisz 127
7 Rob Huff 125
8 Gabriele Tarquini 104
9 Tom Chilton 103
10 Tom Coronel 75
11 Hugo Valente 70
12 Thed Bjork 41
13 Fredrik Ekblom 35
14 James Thompson 22
15 Gregoire Demoustier 11
16 John Filippi 7
17 Ferenc Ficza 2
18 Rene Munnich 2
19 Sabine Schmitz 1

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