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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