Muller extends WTCC championship lead with victory in Algarve opener

Starting alongside polesitter Gabriele Tarquini (Lukoil Racing), Muller enjoyed a strong getaway from the outside of the front row at the rolling start, taking the lead from Tarquini around the outside at Turn 1.

The Italian stayed in touch with Muller throughout, but contending with pressure from Muller's factory Chevrolet team-mate Rob Huff was unable to stage an overtaking attempt.

The order among the top four remained unchanged after the completion of the opening tour. Despite the failure of a passing manoeuvre to materialise, the leaders proved closely matched and were separated by less than a second at the chequered flag.

After being demoted into Turn 1, Norbert Michelisz - who qualified third - did well to hang on to the bumper of Huff's Cruze in the early laps. The Zengo Motorsport racer gradually dropped back and completed a relatively lonely run to fourth.

Following a difficult final qualifying session, in which he suffered an large oversteer moment on his hot lap, the third factory Cruze of Alain Menu provided some excitement as the Swiss progressed up the order from a ninth place grid position.

Menu is under investigation however for a first-lap incident in which he tapped Tarquini's team-mate Aleksei Dudukalo into a half-spin.

While Menu continued, Dudukalo later ran wide at Turn 11 and rejoined into the path of the unfortunate Gabor Weber (Zengo Motorsport), causing the Hungarian's retirement.

On lap four, Menu overtook local hero Tiago Monteiro (Tuenti SEAT) into Turn 2, and two laps later slipstreamed the ROAL BMW of Tom Coronel for fifth across the start-finish straight.

Coronel completed the top six ahead of Monteiro and a strong showing from the second ROAL entry of Italian Superstars champion Alberto Cerqui.

Results - 11 laps:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car               Time/Gap
 1.  Yvan Muller           Chevrolet            21m20.620s
 2.  Gabriele Tarquini     Lukoil SEAT            + 0.336s
 3.  Rob Huff              Chevrolet              + 0.951s
 4.  Norbert Michelisz     Zengo BMW              + 6.699s
 5.  Alain Menu            Chevrolet             + 13.669s
 6.  Tom Coronel           ROAL BMW              + 17.053s
 7.  Tiago Monteiro        SUNRED SEAT           + 20.172s
 8.  Alberto Cerqui        ROAL BMW              + 20.422s
 9.  Pepe Oriola           SUNRED SEAT           + 21.134s
10.  Alex MacDowall        bamboo Chevrolet      + 21.723s
11.  Stefano D'Aste        Wiechers BMW          + 22.453s
12.  Franz Engstler        Engstler BMW          + 26.142s
13.  Darryl O'Young        Special Tuning SEAT   + 29.066s
14.  Tom Boardman          Special Tuning SEAT   + 29.813s
15.  Pasquale di Sabatino  bamboo Chevrolet      + 34.752s
16.  Tom Chilton           Arena Ford            + 42.163s

Retirements:

     James Thompson        TMS Lada                10 laps
     Charles Ng            Engstler BMW             9 laps
     James Nash            Arena Ford               7 laps
     Mehdi Bennani         Proteam BMW              7 laps
     Gabor Weber           Zengo BMW                4 laps
     Aleksei Dudukalo      Lukoil SEAT              2 laps