S'Touring: One each Walfisch, Larini

The day's (Sunday's) proceedings began with a rain-soaked opening race, which saw Gabriele Tarquini, Larini and Britain's Matt Neal all in with a chance of victory.

The Honda Accord of Tarquini and the Nissan Primera of Neal battled it out up front for first part of the race, but neither was a match for Larini's Alfa Romeo 156 when the rain came halfway through.

As Neal dropped back, Tarquini tried to hold on, but ran wide at the last corner and Larini slipped past for the win. Meanwhile, Giovanardi's Alfa suffered from engine trouble on the opening lap and after pitting, the Italian rejoined to finish a lowly 17th.


The rain cleared up for race two and with the starting line-up the reverse of the finishing order from the day's first encounter, the leading lights of race one would do well to get back up to the front by the finish.

Tarquini gave it a good go and put in a mammoth effort to finish second after muscling past the Audi A4 of Roberto Colciago on the final lap. But the Italian could not overthrow the Accord of team mate Fabrice Walfisch.

The former Formula 3000 man got past Colciago at the start to take the lead and there he stayed to take his maiden ETCC victory.

"The race was easy enough," Walfisch told Eurosport. "I attacked straight away to pass Colciago, we were on a quick pace so I kept pushing and in fact the victory came pretty easily. I am extremely happy to have scored more points for the team and to see Gabriele take second."

Giovanardi came home fourth just ahead Larini in fifth and the pair are separated by just seven points at the top of the championship table, in Giovanardi's favour. Tarquini is a further 22 behind Larini in third.

"It was a good result after starting on the last row," said Tarquini. "The car was good in the dry and I was extremely happy to have beaten both Alfa's and to have closed the gap in the championship. We have four races to go and anything can happen - we saw that Giovanardi had some engine problems. I have never won at the Nurburgring and it remains that I have never won here, but I was happy to see my team mate win."

Nicola Larini Alfa Romeo 156 21m56.814s
Gabriele Tarquini Honda Accord +1.583s
Matt Neal Nissan Primera Mark 3 +8.246s
Sandro Sardelli Nissan Primera Mark 3 +31.308s
Gianluca De Lorenzi BMW 320i E36 +36.154s
Mikko Lempinen Audi A4 Quattro +40.936s

Fabrice Walfisch Honda Accord 19m42.435s
Gabriele Tarquini Honda Accord +2.124s
Roberto Colciago Audi A4 Quattro +2.616s
Fabrizio Giovanardi Alfa Romeo 156 +10.408s
Nicola Larini Alfa Romeo 156 +15.444s
Gianluca De Lorenzi BMW 320i E36 +17.021s

Fabrizio Giovanardi 493
Nicola Larini 486
Gabriele Tarquini 464
Fabrice Walfisch 402
Sandro Sardelli 359
Roberto Colciago 342