Yvan Muller two ‘perfect weekends’ clear after Moscow

RML’s Yvan Muller can afford to skip the next two rounds of the World Touring Car Championship at Porto and Santiago del Estero and still be leading the standings at Sonoma after another strong weekend at Moscow.

The three-time champion has scored the most points in four of the six race weekends so far, only being outscored by Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini at Slovakia and bamboo-engineering’s James Nash at Salzburg. A perfect score in any weekend is 55 points, which can be achieved by taking both race victories and pole position, of which Muller also achieved at the season opening round at Monza.

Muller’s lead in the drivers’ standings is now 113 points over Tarquini heading into the second half of the season, which kicks off with the final round in Europe of the season at Porto at the end of the month.

At Moscow, Muller won race one from pole position, though had to fight hard to defend against the ROAL Motorsport BMW 320 TC of Tom Coronel throughout, and then drove from ninth on the grid to second in race two to extend his points lead by 33 points over Castrol Honda driver Tarquini.

“Of course I’m very pleased,” said Muller “A great weekend, with pole position, one victory and one second place – the team have done a super job again.

“I am especially happy for our partner LUKOIL, as this is their home race. I didn’t expect to have nearly twice the points of my competitors after the first half of the season so this is quite amazing. But now we have to stay focused and keep working hard like this until the end.”