Yvan Muller edges closer to López, but needs bigger gains

Yvan Muller took two points out of his Citroën team-mate’s points lead at Spa-Francorchamps, but admits that without some non-finishes for López, it’ll be impossible to claw back the points gap before the end of the year.

The four-time champion closed by two points in the standings, effectively all scored in qualifying after both drivers finished 1-2 and 2-1 in the two races at Spa-Francorchamps. Yvan Muller now trails López by 39 points, while Sébastien Loeb has now slipped to 65 points behind his Argentinian team-mate as the European leg of the Championship ends.

“In the first race, one of the keys of course was to do a good start, so I could keep the lead at the first corner. Then on the first lap I was cautious as my tyres weren’t totally ready, and then I started to push very hard to try and make as much of a gap as I could as to not give a slipstream to anyone, and that Seb (Loeb) and Pechito (López) fought together helped me a little bit,” said Muller.

“In race two, my start was not brilliant, but at least I didn’t lose any places. The first corner was a bit tricky. Step-by-step I could fight, my car was very fast in Raidillon and that helped us to overtake on the straight, that’s the advantage of our car this weekend, as in Raidillon and Blanchimont our car was very strong, and those are the two best places to overtake.”

Reflecting on the points gap to team-mate López, Muller was pessimistic but not dismissive about potentially closing the gap.
“If there are no DNFs it will be impossible to come back on Pechito, but we will see, the season is long, anything can happen.”

López however was more cautious about his points position following the race, especially as from qualifying onwards it seemed that Muller had the edge over him this weekend, at the first circuit of the season where it was López that had more track knowledge than his four-times championship winning team-mate.

“I don’t agree that it’s a big difference, it’s so easy to lose it,” said López. “I think there’s still a long way to go, I cannot say I’m not thinking of the Championship, as we have done seven races already, I had the chance to do well here because I knew Spa, but in the end I’ve done better in the circuits I didn’t know, so you never know. We’re going to Termas, where I won last year, it’s the circuit where in Argentina I’ve won the most races. I hope to take advantage of that and then we’ll see what happens.”