Alain Menu resists Colin Turkington for race one victory in China

Menu started from pole and spent the early part of the race running ahead of Chevrolet team-mate and fellow front row starter Rob Huff. But just behind the pair was Turkington's Wiechers-Sport BMW, which appeared to be quicker than both of the blue cars ahead of him.

That speed was confirmed with a neat move at Turn 1 to take second from Huff eight laps into the race, and with one Chevrolet dispatched, Turkington set off to find out whether he could do anything about Menu as well.

Although things got close, Menu managed to hold on for his fourth win of the season, keeping him mathematically in title contention, while current championship leader Yvan Muller was able to limit the damage of Huff's third place by finishing just behind him in fourth, meaning that the Briton chipped just three points out of his lead. The gap now stands at 10 points.

The highlight of Muller's race was a robust move on Norbert Michelisz (Zengo-Dension BMW) around the outside of Turn 1 to take fourth. The Hungarian's race continued to go south from that point on - he lost another two places on that lap alone (to Tom Coronel and Kristian Poulsen) and continued to drop through the field to eventually finish 11th.

Meanwhile, the race two grid will be one car lighter, with bamboo-engineering's Yukinori Taniguchi having been sidelined by damage sustained late in the opening race. The Japanese driver attempted to drive on after suffering damage when he clipped the spun car of Charles Ng, only to hit the wall with broken suspension.

Results - 25 laps:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car             Time/Gap
 1.  Alain Menu          Chevrolet          28m05.718s
 2.  Colin Turkington    Wiechers BMW         + 1.222s
 3.  Rob Huff            Chevrolet            + 5.065s
 4.  Yvan Muller         Chevrolet            + 8.005s
 5.  Tom Coronel         ROAL BMW             + 9.010s
 6.  Kristian Poulsen    Engstler BMW         + 9.921s
 7.  Mehdi Bennani       Proteam BMW         + 15.487s
 8.  Tiago Monteiro      SUNRED SEAT         + 22.630s
 9.  Robert Dahlgren     Polestar Volvo      + 26.204s
10.  Javier Villa        Proteam BMW         + 27.118s
11.  Norbert Michelisz   Zengo BMW           + 28.291s
12.  Franz Engstler      Engstler BMW        + 28.539s
13.  Darryl O'Young      Bamboo Chevrolet    + 38.072s
14.  Michel Nykjaer      SUNRED SEAT         + 53.157s
15.  Aleksei Dudukalo    SUNRED SEAT         + 59.011s
16.  Charles Ng          Engstler BMW      + 1m11.155s
17.  Pepe Oriola         SUNRED SEAT           + 1 lap
18.  Fabio Fabiani       Engstler BMW          + 1 lap
19.  Philip Ma           Proteam BMW           + 1 lap
20.  Yukinori Taniguchi  Bamboo Chevrolet     + 2 laps
21.  Fredy Barth         SUNRED SEAT          + 4 laps

Not classified:

     Gabriele Tarquini   SUNRED SEAT           15 laps