José María López elated with historic win and epic race two podium

Championship leader José María López put on two sterling performances at the Nürburgring Nordschleife to claim his fourth win from eight races in the 2015 WTCC season, winning the first race from pole position, while going from tenth to second in race two at a track it was argued it was impossible to pass.

The 2014 champion put on a faultless performance in the first race to lead a Citroën 1-2-3 podium lockout, while all the action of the day for the Argentinian was seen in race two, as he avoided a spinning team-mate on the final lap and closed down and passed the two Hondas on the main Döttinger Hohe straight to grab a hard-fought second place behind team-mate Yvan Muller.

“(At the start of the last lap) I was sixth and I was thinking the reversed grid isn’t very fair here as it was very difficult to pass,” said López to TouringCarTimes.

“I went past (Mehdi) Bennani at the first corner, which was a nice manoeuvre, and then I was behind Ma (Qing Hua). Ma was a bit on the edge everywhere and I asked the team at one point if it was possible to pass I was losing time with Séb (Loeb) behind me, but as always the team was very fair on that so we kept on fighting.”

López was then lucky to avoid his Citroën team-mate just a few corners later, as the Chinese driver found the barriers for the second time this weekend after spinning at the Flugplatz.

“He arrived at the top and he went off. It was a very difficult and critical moment because I didn’t know where to go and I didn’t know if he was going to hit the inside or the outside,” said López.

The Argentinian managed to avoid his team-mate and was now fourth behind Gabriele Tarquini’s Honda with over half a lap to go.

“I saw the gap between Tarquini and I and it was three to four seocnds, and I had to think whether I just stay fourth as it was still pretty good for the championship, or if I should try to go for it. So I chose to go for it.”

At the end of the lap, López put on the move of the race as he dived past Tarquini’s Honda at the Döttinger Höhe straight, and then was able to get around the outside of Monteiro’s Honda to grab second, crossing the line on the tail of team-mate Yvan Muller’s Citroën.

“Honestly I was thinking about third, but then I took the slipstream of Gabriele and passed him, and I think I was a little bit lucky as I think that Tiago had lost the slipstream from Yvan because he was a little bit too far behind. We had taken a bit of a risk as we went with just three degrees of rear wing which was difficult on the corners, but the speed on the main straight was amazing, and I took the slipstream and passing for second was amazing.”

On whether the victory in race one on his own, or second place with all the action in race two felt better, the reigning champion responded:
“Both were great. Winning is priceless because I really wanted to win here, so without that the second race wouldn’t have been as special as it was, so both were great.”