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Slovakia WTCC: Coronel gives BMW its first win of 2013

Tom Coronel took BMW's first World Touring Car win of the season with an assured drive in the Slovakia Ring finale

The Dutchman, starting from pole on the reversed grid, preserved his advantage away from the line and quickly distanced himself from what became a massive fight for second.

Marrakech race winner Pepe Oriola originally held the spot, but came under increasing pressure from a gaggle of cars led by defending champion Rob Huff (SEAT), Yvan Muller (Chevrolet) and race-one winner Gabriele Tarquini (Honda).

As the trio tried to balance attack and defence, myriad others closed in, with second through to ninth rarely separated by more two seconds.

The effective stalemate of the first laps was finally broken at mid-distance when Huff found his way past Oriola at Turn 1.

Muller and Tarquini also pounced, going either side of Oriola, but as Tarquini eased ahead of both men he and Oriola touched, dropping the Spaniard down the order and allowing Muller to squeeze back through.

Muller and Huff then traded places several times before the Frenchman finally got the better of his old team-mate when the Briton ran too deep into Turn 1 on the penultimate lap.

Tarquini also slipped by, but despite constant pressure was unable to then hound Muller out of second.

Huff hung on to fourth ahead of Tarquini's team-mate Tiago Monteiro, who had been running fourth until Muller tagged him at Turn 1 on the second lap.

Oriola meanwhile had fallen to sixth as a result of his earlier brush with Tarquini, and soon had a new wave of cars pouring over his rear, led by the second RML Chevrolet of Tom Chilton.

The pair went side by side several times over the final laps but Oriola denied the Briton by just over two tenths of a second.

Alex MacDowall fought back from first-lap contact to finish eighth, narrowly ahead of the BMWs of Mehdi Bennani and Darryl O'Young.

Norbert Michelisz had also been in the six-way fight for sixth but tumbled down the order over the final two laps.

Results - 10 laps:

Pos Driver                Team/Car              Time/Gap
 1. Tom Coronel           ROAL BMW              22m26.224s
 2. Yvan Muller           RML Chevrolet         + 2.990s
 3. Gabriele Tarquini     Honda                 + 3.345s
 4. Robert Huff           Munnich SEAT          + 4.954s
 5. Tiago Monteiro        Honda                 + 5.222s
 6. Pepe Oriola           Tuenti SEAT           + 11.365s
 7. Tom Chilton           RML Chevrolet         + 11.625s
 8. Alex MacDowall        Bamboo Chevrolet      + 11.816s
 9. Mehdi Bennani         Proteam BMW           + 12.265s
10. Darryl O'Young        ROAL BMW              + 12.498s
11. Stefano D'Aste        PB BMW                + 12.827s
12. Michel Nykjaer        Nika Chevrolet        + 13.678s
13. Fredy Barth           Wiechers BMW          + 14.651s
14. James Thompson        Lada                  + 18.518s
15. Marc Basseng          Munnich SEAT          + 19.887s
16. Fernando Monje        Campos SEAT           + 20.246s
17. James Nash            Bamboo Chevrolet      + 22.418s
18. Tom Boardman          Special Tuning SEAT   + 31.643s
19. Rene Munnich          Munnich SEAT          + 32.076s
20. M.Kozlovskiy          Lada                  + 35.472s
21. Norbert Michelisz     Zengo Honda           + 54.663s

Retirements:

    Charles Ng            Engstler BMW          4 laps
    Franz Engstler        Engstler BMW          2 laps

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