Hungary WTCC: Jose Maria Lopez leads Citroen one-two
Jose Maria Lopez took his third main race World Touring Car Championship win of the season at a soaking Hungaroring, ahead of Citroen team-mate Yvan Muller
Citroen's victory made amends for a strange tyre call in race one to record the team's first one-two finish of the season, although that was threatened by Rob Huff who had split the pair before receiving a contentious drive-through penalty.
Lopez led off the line, with Muller and race one winner Mehdi Bennani storming through the order from their lower top 10 starting positions.
Huff just got the better of Muller through the first two corners and slotted into second, but with Lopez escaping Muller continued to hound Huff, with the Briton succumbing to his rival at Turn 5 just before the deployment of the safety car to recover Gregoire Demoustier's stricken Sebastien Loeb Racing Citroen C-Elysee.
Lopez had built an advantage of more than three seconds before the safety car, but he had no such comfort on the race restart as Muller and Huff - who this time was able to stick with the Citroens - stalked him.
The trio started lap 10 in close formation, but with Muller refusing a look at his team-mate at Turn 1, Huff decided to make his move and looked up the inside of Muller into Turn 2, only for the Frenchman to move across the front of Huff's Civic.
With Huff already committed to the corner, the pair made contact that was sufficient enough for Muller to edge wide, handing Huff second.
The Briton then closed back up to the rear of Lopez - only to be handed a drive-through penalty as a result of the move, ending his hopes of victory.
Muller looked for a lap or two as though he might be able to challenge Lopez from there, only for the latter to stretch his advantage in the final laps, eventually winning by 2.821 seconds.
Tiago Monteiro finished third for Honda, having rebuffed the advance of Polestar's Thed Bjork who was fourth.
Tom Chilton followed up his second place in race one with a WTCC Trophy win in fifth, while Huff recovered to sixth in a wild final lap.
The Briton had started it in eighth, having just passed Bennani - himself having been hit with a drive-through - and made his way past Tom Coronel and team-mate Norbert Michelisz, who had fought his way into sixth only to suffer a problem with his left-rear wheel on the final lap.
Coronel had two attempts to pass Michelisz - the first sending him into a half spin - and was able to claim eighth ahead of Bennani, with Michelisz dropping to 10th on the run to the line after Hugo Valente was able to out-drag the Hungarian off the final corner.
RESULT
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Laps | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen Racing | Citroen | 17 | 38m37.180s |
2 | Yvan Muller | Citroen Racing | Citroen | 17 | 2.821s |
3 | Tiago Monteiro | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 17 | 14.981s |
4 | Thed Bjork | Polestar Cyan Racing | Volvo | 17 | 18.026s |
5 | Tom Chilton | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 17 | 19.834s |
6 | Rob Huff | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 17 | 24.535s |
7 | Tom Coronel | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 17 | 26.979s |
8 | Mehdi Bennani | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 17 | 27.898s |
9 | Hugo Valente | LADA Sport | Lada | 17 | 36.557s |
10 | Norbert Michelisz | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 17 | 36.867s |
11 | Fredrik Ekblom | Polestar Cyan Racing | Volvo | 17 | 42.681s |
12 | John Filippi | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 17 | 50.959s |
13 | Nicky Catsburg | LADA Sport | Lada | 17 | 58.529s |
14 | Rene Munnich | Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 15 | 2 Laps |
- | Ferenc Ficza | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | 17 | Disqualified |
- | Gabriele Tarquini | LADA Sport | Lada | 5 | Collision |
- | Gregoire Demoustier | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 2 | Accident |
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