The surprise team orders twisting a world title battle

A collective groan could well have been heard from the Guia circuit to Guernsey last Saturday, such was the frustration at Andy Priaulx giving up what would have been a first podium since returning to World Touring Cars to elevate Lynk & Co team-mate Thed Bjork in the race-one order.

Priaulx's season has been a trying one at times, but his pace has been nowhere near as bad as the 20th place in the overall championship he started the weekend in suggested, and his form during the Asian leg of the season has been among the best. To see that come so close to being rewarded, only to be taken away on the final lap, was irritating from a sporting standpoint.

It did not come as a surprise, though, as Priaulx's Cyan Performance stablemate Yann Ehrlacher moved over in exactly the same fashion out of Fisherman's Bend (Ehrlacher, tongue firmly in cheek, said after a pause for thought he had "missed a shift") early in the race.

Bjork finished fifth, a result that put him 47 points off the championship lead and down to fourth in the standings behind team-mate Yvan Muller, who happened to have won the race.

To its credit, Cyan and its drivers didn't shy away from admitting team orders were in place during the Guia Race weekend. Who could blame it? It's crunch time in the title fight; the Cyan Racing-bannered cars on the right-hand side of the garage take precedent, as the main hope in the teams' battle, meaning this was no controversy, and the team has two drivers in contention for the drivers' crown.

Or does it?

Mathematically, the answer is of course yes, but there was another twist on Sunday that revealed one now has priority over the other - and it's not the Swedish driver racing for a Swedish team.

That would have been the natural assumption to make given team orders were used to favour Bjork first, but then Muller didn't need that assistance. He was off at the front of the pack, winning the race ahead of overall points leader Norbert Michelisz (BRC Racing Hyundai).

But he did require help to win the following day, and it's this that made it abundantly clear that he's the horse Cyan is putting most of its money on to claim the crown.

That's not to say Muller only won the reversed-grid second race through team orders. A blistering start hauled him past Munnich Motorsport title hopeful Esteban Guerrieri and Kevin Ceccon's Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce into third, behind polesitter Ehrlacher and second-place starter Bjork. It was no surprise to see Ehrlacher make way for the two title hopefuls exiting Maternity, but what was a shock was seeing Muller emerge at the end of the first lap ahead of Bjork.

"Thanks very much to Thed and Yann because that victory could have been them" Yvan Muller

Where the change took place wasn't clear at the time as it wasn't captured on the broadcast (Bjork moved over on the run between the Melco hairpin and down to Fisherman's), but what was plain to see was the implication of the switch of positions.

There were no further changes thereafter - Bjork stayed in his team-mate's draft for the remaining seven laps but did not threaten the leader - as Muller clinched his second victory of the weekend and fourth of the season.

"We knew of course straight away, because they were starting one and two with [Yann and] Thed, that if that was the case at the first corner Yann would let Thed past and if I was joining them, I would pass both of them," said Muller. "It happened and thanks very much to Thed and Yann because that victory could have been them."

Bjork would move over again in the final race, dropping from fifth to seventh to give Muller - who had been frustrated all race by the Hyundai of Nicky Catsburg, on his own mission to keep the Lynk & Co at bay and help limit the damage of team-mate Michelisz's 12th-place starting slot - an extra point.

Did Cyan need to do it? Had the positions not been reversed in either race two or three, Muller and Bjork would now have 297 points each (rather than 305 and 288 respectively), and both would be less than 20 off the summit.

Given 85 points are still up for grabs at next month's Sepang season finale, and the go-to cliche quote in the paddock is currently 'there's still so much to play for', it seems "no" is a fair answer to that question.

But Bjork was keen to stress that he could hardly claim the race two win should have been his given Ehrlacher made space for him, too.

"Now he [Muller] has more points than me and that's the way we do it," he told Autosport. "And you cannot say the first one was my win, because then Yann [was] slowing, so it's everybody helping out."

Let's be clear: Cyan isn't the only team with a title contender to have used team orders this season. BRC and Hyundai set out their stall nice and early when Augusto Farfus gave up a maiden WTCR podium of his own for Michelisz at Zandvoort in May. Tiago Monteiro isn't even in the same Honda team as Guerrieri, but moved aside for the Argentinian at Suzuka.

But there are differences, particular between BRC's and Cyan's examples. The timeframe is one thing - Muller would be leading the standings had Bjork, for example, been committed to making way for his team-mate in the same way he did in the final Macau race since the middle of the season.

But the bigger point, one that potentially makes Cyan's decision seem contentious, is that whereas BRC has committed to one driver and can therefore say it couldn't have done more for Michelisz's bid if he doesn't win, should Muller befall the same fate - be it as a result of simply not scoring the points needed to beat his rivals, or through an incident or technical issue - Cyan could be kicking itself for not giving Bjork the same shot.

Those forward-looking 'what ifs' can only ever be hypothetical, and it's impossible to predict every scenario that could occur at the final round (though Cyan will undoubtedly have tried its best to do just that), but they're always better than retrospective 'what ifs'.

As for Priaulx, there was just desserts on Sunday for his previous act of sacrifice. Nobody could match Rob Huff's Volkswagen Golf GTI in qualifying trim on Friday - the Sebastien Loeb Racing driver scored his ninth pole at the Guia circuit - but Priaulx got closest with a fine shootout effort of his own. Things got better at the start of the finale, too, when he got his Lynk & Co 03 off the line better than Huff and dragged the field through Reservoir and Mandarin.

This wasn't a classic, but there was a fittingly tense conclusion as the balance of power shifted between the two cars. The Lynk & Co didn't have the top speeds of the Hyundai or, in particular, the Audi RS3 LMS on the run to Lisboa, but its Balance of Performance boost curve did allow for better speeds in the second acceleration phase - making it less susceptible to attack into the first braking zone.

"Christian Dahl is a racer and he wants to be number one most of all" Andy Priaulx on Cyan's boss

By contrast, the VW was at its worst through the first sector so, while Huff was glued to Priaulx's rear bumper through the mountain section, a superior exit from the Melco hairpin usually gave the Lynk & Co a comfortable margin (by Macau standards) until the pack got back to Lisboa.

Huff was within four tenths of Priaulx over the line on a couple of occasions and made one final attempt to catch the Lynk & Co by setting a new fastest lap on the antepenultimate tour, but it was in vain, as Priaulx went quicker next time by and, one lap later, took the chequered flag to return to the World Touring Car winners' circle.

"I'm really pleased to get that one out of the way - I had Rob behind me all the way and that guy is pretty special around here, so I was working hard the whole race," said Priaulx who, when asked if he was concerned he might be asked to give up the win too, added: "There's always a concern. I'm just very proud that the team supported me. Christian [Dahl, Cyan Racing boss] is a racer and he wants to be number one. That's what he wants most of all."

As for the title race, Michelisz - who salvaged 10th- and 12th-place finishes from his mid-pack grid slots, a consequence of a qualifying crunch with the WRT Audi of Gordon Shedden, who had crashed out of sight at Moorish - recaptured the lead, though might have had a more comfortable margin over closest rival Guerrieri but for that session-ending shunt.

Honda driver Guerrieri was nowhere in Friday's first qualifying, then briefly landed the reversed-grid pole in second qualifying, only to lose that for an on-track altercation with Catsburg. A three-place drop put Guerrieri fourth on the grid for a second race in which the rear of his car looked incredibly unstable - overhead TV shots at the final corner showed just how hard Guerrieri was sawing at the wheel to keep it together - but he turned in an impeccable performance to grab fourth, which included an opportunistic pass on Ehrlacher from way back at Lisboa.

"Yesterday we went with a set-up trying some things, then we pitted because I wasn't feeling very good, so we pitted to try something in the front suspension and went out again," said Guerrieri. "That gave us a good indication. [On Sunday] I had a decent car - probably better in race two than race three, race three was hotter so I had more understeer.

"But of course to try and compensate for the lack of speed we are very low on wing, so the car was like everywhere in the corners. So I just tried to keep the car on the Tarmac, basically, and off the walls."

That fourth place, plus a 10th in the finale, helped Guerrieri limit the damage of what could have been a costly weekend. Nine points is hardly an insurmountable deficit to Michelisz and, with Muller a tantalising two points further back, a mid-December season ender should be well worth the wait.

And should Muller beat the odds in Malaysia and claim the title, Cyan will rightly rest easy knowing it backed the correct runner.