Macau WTCC: Yvan Muller dominates opening race

The Citroen-bound Frenchman, who has won three of his four world crowns with the crack outfit, protected his lead away from the rolling start, won the race down to Lisboa and then simply disappeared.

Honda's Tiago Monteiro held off race-long pressure from five-time Macau winner Rob Huff to clinch second, finishing just three tenths ahead of the Briton.

Contact between Pepe Oriola and Tom Chilton meanwhile sent the Briton into the wall on lap two, all but ending his hopes of finishing runner-up in the championship.

Gabriele Tarquini, who remains second, did not compete after being forced to change his Honda's engine following the morning warm-up.

The Italian's absence played a part in Muller's victory: without Tarquini to contend with, he had only to hold off Monteiro on the run down to Lisboa to essentially seal the win.

A mighty second sector helped him establish a 1.7-second lead after the opening lap, and he was able to extend that at will before backing off in the closing stages.

Norbert Michelisz moved into fourth away from the line, and held off early pressure from Bamboo duo Alex MacDowall and James Nash to keep the position to the finish.

Nash had jumped Chilton at the start, and has likewise moved ahead of him in the championship - the former team-mates currently separated by just one point heading into the final race. They are both due to start from the second row.

After hitting Chilton - the incident is currently under investigation - Oriola had a massive moment in the Solitude Esses and dropped back into the clutches of Marc Basseng and Stefano D'Aste.

Basseng's pressure eventually told when he snuck through and into seventh one lap from the finish, with Oriola resisting D'Aste, Tom Boardman and Tom Coronel at the line. Just 1.5 seconds covered the quartet at the flag.

Campos pair Hugo Valente and Konstantins Calko crashed of their own accord, while race two front-row man James Thompson suffered turbo issues and twice pitted.

Results - 9 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                  Time/Gap
 1.  Yvan Muller          RML Chevrolet           22m54.522s
 2.  Tiago Monteiro       Honda                      +1.265s
 3.  Rob Huff             Munnich SEAT               +1.592s
 4.  Norbert Michelisz    Zengo Honda                +5.147s
 5.  Alex MacDowall       Bamboo Chevrolet           +7.096s
 6.  James Nash           Bamboo Chevrolet           +7.632s
 7.  Marc Basseng         Munnich SEAT              +18.148s
 8.  Pepe Oriola          Tuenti Chevrolet          +20.345s
 9.  Stefano D'Aste       PB BMW                    +20.644s
10.  Tom Boardman         Special Tuning SEAT       +21.213s
11.  Tom Coronel          ROAL BMW                  +21.806s
12.  Mehdi Bennani        Proteam BMW               +22.806s
13.  Darryl O'Young       ROAL BMW                  +30.471s
14.  Franz Engstler       Engstler BMW              +32.905s
15.  Mikhail Kozlovskiy   Lada                      +40.394s
16.  Rene Munnich         Munnich SEAT              +58.083s
17.  Yukinori Taniguchi   Nika Chevrolet          +1m12.888s
18.  Michael Soong        Campos SEAT             +1m13.961s
19.  Henry Ho             Engstler BMW            +1m16.085s
20.  Filipe de Souza      China Dragon Chevrolet  +1m18.107s
21.  Joseph Rosa-Merszei  Engstler BMW            +1m36.668s
22.  Ng Kin Veng          China Dragon Chevrolet  +1m44.616s
23.  Celio Alves Dias     China Dragon Chevrolet  +1m45.773s
24.  Eurico de Jesus      PAS Honda               +1m46.315s
25.  Jeronimo Badaraco    Son Veng Chevrolet      +1m55.988s
26.  Lam Kam San          China Dragon Chevrolet  +2m23.146s
27.  Mak Ka Lok           RPM BMW                 +2m25.450s

Retirements:

     Charles Ng           Engstler BMW                8 laps
     Konstantins Calko    Campos SEAT                 8 laps
     Hugo Valente         Campos SEAT                 5 laps
     Tom Chilton          RML Chevrolet               2 laps
     James Thompson       Lada                        2 laps
     Gabriele Tarquini    Honda