Shanghai WTCC: Menu wins, Muller in trouble, Huff grabs points lead

The Swiss veteran was chased throughout by RML Chevrolet team-mate Rob Huff, but the Briton had little incentive to stage a passing move as title rival Yvan Muller was a first-lap retirement following contact at Turn 2.

"I wasn't pushing at all," said Huff, whose second place moves him ahead of Muller into the championship lead. "After the dramas I have had in the past, as soon as I saw that Yvan was in trouble I stayed off the kerbs and just wanted to finish."

Muller's problems started when he attempted to pass polesitter Menu around the outside of Turn 1. Light contact between the fighting Chevrolet men forced three-time champion Muller wide and allowed the chasing Huff into second.

Into Turn 2, Muller was tapped sideways by Independents' points leader Norbert Michelisz, and then received further knocks from 2012 debutant Colin Turkington and a Bamboo Engineering Cruze.

As Muller headed for the pits nursing a broken right-rear wheel, Michelisz received an arguably harsh drive-through penalty.

Chain reaction incidents broke out further through the pack. Pepe Oriola rode over Turkington's WSR Cruze's wheels, sending Turkington down to 20th while damage to the Tuenti Leon would later force the Spaniard to pit for repairs. Both Bamboo Engineering drivers also sustained race-ending damage.

Double 2012 victor Stefano d'Aste was promoted to third place for Wiechers-Sport, and the Italian maintained a comfortable margin over race two polesitter Tom Coronel and Gabriele Tarquini in the best of the SEATs.

Tom Boardman was another benefactor of the opening lap carnage. The lone Special Tuning SEAT expertly negotiated the early laps to rise from 20th to sixth place.

After a disappointing qualifying effort, Tiago Monteiro also made stunning progress to move from 17th to seventh in only the second race weekend for the factory Honda Civic.

Monteiro was hounded in the closing laps by a charging Turkington, and the Portuguese ex-grand prix driver was just 0.1 seconds ahead of the former British Touring Car champion at the flag.

Huff now leads the drivers' standings on 365 points, 16 ahead of Muller, with Menu third on 337.

Race - 13 laps:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car                   Time/Gap
 1.  Alain Menu         Chevrolet                25m12.369s
 2.  Rob Huff           Chevrolet                  + 1.500s
 3.  Stefano d'Aste     Wiechers BMW              + 11.192s
 4.  Tom Coronel        ROAL BMW                  + 13.327s
 5.  Gabriele Tarquini  Lukoil SEAT               + 15.653s
 6.  Tom Boardman       Special Tuning SEAT       + 26.382s
 7.  Tiago Monteiro     Honda                     + 30.032s
 8.  Colin Turkington   WSR Chevrolet             + 30.125s
 9.  Alberto Cerqui     ROAL BMW                  + 31.463s
10.  Fredy Barth        SUNRED SEAT               + 36.426s
11.  Mehdi Bennani      Proteam BMW               + 40.183s
12.  Franz Engstler     Engstler BMW              + 40.320s
13.  Charles Ng         Engstler BMW              + 44.499s
14.  Tom Chilton        Arena Ford                + 46.076s
15.  Hugo Valente       SUNRED SEAT               + 47.406s
16.  Norbert Michelisz  Zengo BMW               + 1m07.550s
17.  Kelvin Leong       Song Veng Honda         + 1m21.551s
18.  Eric Kwong         Look Fong Chevrolet     + 1m25.129s
19.  Filipe Souza       China Dragon Chevrolet  + 1m27.186s
20.  Ng Kin Veng        China Dragon Chevrolet  + 1m37.603s
21.  Alex Liu           Engstler BMW                + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Pepe Oriola        Tuenti SEAT                  9 laps
     Fernando Monje     SUNRED SEAT                  8 laps
     James Nash         Arena Ford                   7 laps
     Darryl O'Young     Bamboo Chevrolet             6 laps
     Aleksei Dudukalo   Lukoil SEAT                  6 laps
     Alex MacDowall     Bamboo Chevrolet             4 laps
     Yvan Muller        Chevrolet                     1 lap