José María López leads Citroën 1-2 in Hungary main race

José María López turned around Citroën’s disastrous performance in the first race of the day when the French manufacturer failed to score points due to a tyre strategy error, to win race two ahead of team-mate Yvan Muller, while Honda’s Rob Huff found himself handed a penalty for contact for his former team-mate and rival.

The rain had continued to fall inbetween races meaning tyre strategy was not as pressing as in the first race, with wets the only way to go for all competitors.

Honda had fixed local hero Norbert Michelisz’s car and he would start from last place after a turbo change, while López kept the lead at the start from pole with the ROAL Chevrolet of Tom Coronel behind him from second on the grid, while Citroën team-mate had a superb start from seventh on the grid to be up to third by Turn 1, which became second when Coronel slid wide in the slippery conditions one corner later.

Rob Huff was third in the Honda Civic, in effect where he’d started, while Honda team-mate Tiago Monteiro was pushed out of fourth by opening race winner Mehdi Bennani’s Citroën, with the stewards quick to hand the Moroccan a drive-through penalty, placing Monteiro back to fourth.

The race was briefly suspended behind the safety car as Grégoire Demoustier’s Citroën crashed out at Turn 1, when the race resumed, Muller was now on the tail of team-mate López and fighting for the lead as they briefly pulled away, but as the two Citroëns battled on they were caught by Huff, who was able to pass Muller albeit through contact into Turn 3.

The stewards again frowned on the contact and handed Huff a drive-though penalty which dropped him down to ninth position, but the Briton would work his way back up to finish in sixth by the end of the race.

Michelisz was working his way through the field and was up to sixth on the penultimate lap, but overdrove whilst fighting SLR’s Tom Chilton for fifth and slid through the gravel trap, rejoining in front of Tom Coronel and sustaining damage, eventually crossing the line in tenth.

López was left unchallenged for the final laps and took his third win of the season by 2.8 seconds ahead of Muller, and now leads the championship standings by 12 points over Tiago Monteiro who finished third on the podium ahead of Volvo’s Thed Björk.

The next round of the championship takes place at Marrakech in two weeks time.