Menu wins race one at Brands

Menu, who had snatched pole position by just 14 thousandths of a second from Thompson in qualifying, blasted ahead of Thompson's N.Technology Alfa Romeo 156 at the rolling start to take a lead he would never lose. Thompson kept up the pressure, and looked threatening in the closing stages of the race, but Menu was never seriously in danger of losing the lead.

WSR's Colin Turkington was handed a podium on his WTCC debut after SEAT's Jordi Gene dropped back from third place late in the race. With Turkington not eligible to score points as a nationally homologated car, this handed an extra point to Gene's SEAT teammate Yvan Muller.

Gene held on to finish fifth despite Rob Huff, who had earlier battled his way past the leading independents' trophy entry of Pierre-Yves Corthals, coming close to making a move on the final lap.

Defending champion Andy Priaulx took seventh place and three valuable points. Not only did this give him the championship lead, but with title rivals Augusto Farfus and Jorg Muller only 11th and 14th, the latter after spinning at the first corner after clipping Gabriele Tarquini's SEAT, he has the chance to make a clean break in race two from the sharp end of the reverse grid.

Felix Porteiro claimed his first WTCC point since the Brno round in June with ninth place ahead of Tarquini, with SEAT Italia's Roberto Colciago taking second in the independents' trophy in 12th.

                    
Classified:

Pos  Driver            Car         Time
 1.  Alain Menu        Chevrolet   26:48.377
 2.  James Thompson    Alfa Romeo   +  0.659
 3.  Colin Turkington  BMW          +  0.955
 4.  Yvan Muller       SEAT         +  2.161
 5.  Jordi Gené        SEAT         +  2.999
 6.  Robert Huff       Chevrolet    +  3.217
 7.  Andy Priaulx      BMW          +  4.268
 8.  P-Y.Corthals      SEAT         +  4.977
 9.  Felix Porteiro    BMW          +  6.949
10.  G.Tarquini        SEAT         +  8.365
11.  Augusto Farfus    BMW          +  8.913
12.  Roberto Colciago  SEAT         + 11.208
13.  Tom Coronel       SEAT         + 11.672
14.  Jorg Muller       BMW          + 11.789
15.  A.Zanardi         BMW          + 13.616
16.  Luca Rangoni      BMW          + 16.555
17.  Stefano D'Aste    BMW          + 18.461
18.  Sergio Hernandez  BMW          + 21.054
19.  M.Jourdain Jr     SEAT         + 21.673
20.  O.Tielemans       Alfa Romeo   + 27.975
21.  Tiago Monteiro    SEAT         +  1 lap

Not classified:

     Driver            Car         Laps
     M.Ceresoli        SEAT        11
     M.Pedala          SEAT        6
     Nicola Larini     Chevrolet   0
     Sergey Krylov     SEAT        0