Victory boosts Tarquini's title hopes

The reigning champion had lost ground to series leader Yvan Muller over the last two rounds, but stopped the rot by leading from start to finish at SEAT's home circuit.

Still, he was able to make little progress into Muller's advantage because the Frenchman moved past his Chevrolet team-mate Rob Huff into second place early on.

Muller and Huff followed Tarquini home, while Jordi Gene resisted Andy Priaulx's late charge to hold onto fourth. Priaulx had climbed up from ninth to seventh on the opening lap, then moved ahead of Tiago Monteiro on the back straight for sixth.

Several cars inside the top eight then moved a place as Alain Menu broke up Chevrolet's three-car formation to drop back and claim pole position for this afternoon's race.

Fredy Barth is set to start alongside Menu after coming out on top of a scrap with Augusto Farfus. Barth was initially passed by Farfus on the inside at the final corner, but was determined to regain the place.

He bumped the back of Farfus mid-way round the next lap, pushing the BMW's bodywork onto the right rear tyre. Next time round, he hit Farfus several times from behind before pushing him wide, gifting everyone behind a place as Farfus had to rejoin and pit for repairs.

Michel Nykjaer and Tom Coronel completed the top 10, ahead of Norbert Michelisz and independents' winner Kristian Poulsen - the Dane having passed Marc Carol for the class lead three laps from home.

Pos  Driver              Car           Time/Gap
 1.  Gabriele Tarquini   SEAT        23m11.124s
 2.  Yvan Muller         Chevrolet     + 0.513s
 3.  Rob Huff            Chevrolet     + 6.318s
 4.  Jordi Gene          SEAT          + 9.949s
 5.  Andy Priaulx        BMW          + 10.544s
 6.  Tiago Monteiro      SEAT         + 11.666s
 7.  Fredy Barth         SEAT         + 13.734s
 8.  Alain Menu          Chevrolet    + 14.521s
 9.  Michel Nykjaer      SEAT         + 16.586s
10.  Tom Coronel         SEAT         + 17.217s
11.  Norbert Michelisz   SEAT         + 17.929s
12.  Kristian Poulsen    BMW          + 18.434s
13.  Marc Carol          SEAT         + 22.095s
14.  Darryl O'Young      Chevrolet    + 25.535s
15.  Franz Engstler      BMW          + 29.318s
16.  Andrey Romanov      BMW          + 32.595s
17.  Yukinori Taniguchi  Chevrolet    + 37.004s
18.  Augusto Farfus      BMW        + 1m37.389s
19.  Sergio Hernandez    BMW           + 2 laps

Retirements:

     Mehdi Bennani       BMW        6 laps
     Stefano D'Aste      BMW        4 laps