Michelisz claims maiden win at Macau
Norbert Michelisz took his maiden victory in the World Touring Car Championship in the final race of the season in Macau on Sunday, while Gabriele Tarquini secured the runner-up spot in the title chase
With Chevrolet having clinched the manufacturers' championship in the first race of the day, the major interest was on whether race one winner Huff could overtake Tarquini in the battle to finish behind champion Yvan Muller in the standings.
Michelisz led all the way, having surged past pole position man Kristian Poulsen at the original start, before a red flag was put out because of a crash between Andrei Romanov and Nobuteru Taniguchi that blocked the track at Police.
After a safety car restart, Michelisz was able to keep his lead and extend a comfortable margin over second placed man Tarquini, who came under intense pressure from Huff on the last lap.
But despite his speed allowing him to close right up on Tarquini, Huff could not find a way past and he finished third. That result tied the Briton on points with Tarquini, but with less race wins this season he is placed third in the standings.
Behind the podium finishers, Muller ended his season with fourth place - having let Huff through early in the race and then battled hard himself with the struggling BMW of Augusto Farfus.
After minor contact between them several times, Muller eventually got past his BMW rival on the run down to Lisboa on lap nine.
And despite his bumper trailing off the back of his car, Farfus eventually finished fifth ahead of Tom Coronel and a hard-charging Andy Priaulx - who had started at the back of the field following his race one accident.
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap
1. Norbert Michelisz SEAT 10 laps/54m37.415s
2. Gabriele Tarquini SEAT +1.193
3. Rob Huff Chevrolet +1.543
4. Yvan Muller Chevrolet +10.886
5. Augusto Farfus BMW +14.675
6. Tom Coronel SEAT +14.894
7. Andy Priaulx BMW +15.716
8. Tiago Monteiro SEAT +16.360
9. Sergio Hernandez BMW +20.951
10. Franz Engstler BMW +25.099
11. Michel Nykjaer SEAT +43.156
12. Mehdi Bennani BMW +47.302
13. Colin Turkington BMW +1:01.671
14. Kevin Chen BMW +1:47.235
15. Philip Ma Honda +1:52.404
Retirements:
Cesar Campanico BMW 8 laps
Masaki Kano BMW 6 laps
Kristian Poulsen BMW 4 laps
Jo Merszei BMW 3 laps
Alain Menu Chevrolet 2 laps
Yukinori Taniguchi Chevrolet 0 laps
Darryl O'Young Chevrolet 0 laps
Fredy Barth SEAT 0 laps
Andrey Romanov BMW 0 laps
Nobuteru Taniguchi BMW 0 laps
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments