José María López does the double at the Nürburgring Nordschleife

Citroën’s José María López completed a perfect weekend at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, winning race two from pole position in the main race in a depleted field following a dramatic first race which eliminated two of his main championship rivals.

After both Citroën team-mate Yvan Muller and Honda’s Tiago Monteiro were eliminated following a collision in race one, instigated by a possible tyre failure on Monteiro’s Honda Civic, López had a clear run in the second race, starting as scheduled on pole position but now joined on the front row by Honda’s Norbert Michelisz following Muller’s absence from the grid.

The Hungarian made a great start and launched his Honda Civic up into the lead into Turn 1, but two-time champion López had retaken the lead before the end of the Grand Prix loop and then built up a three second lead by the end of the first lap.

Michelisz was running in second just ahead of Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Tom Chilton, who was forced to fight a rear-guard action against the Honda of Rob Huff throughout the 76km race, with 2012 champion Huff unable to find a way past Chilton’s Citroën C-Elysée.

The bulk of the passes in the race were from the Polestar Cyan Racing pair of Fredrik Ekblom and Thed Björk, who moved their way forwards after a poor start for Ekblom, and with Björk starting from the back after the team resolved the Swede’s oil pressure problem from the first race.

Ekblom and Björk worked their way ahead of the two Ladas of Gabriele Tarquini and Hugo Valente to finish seventh and eighth, but had no time to catch the leading Lada Vesta of Nicky Catsburg in sixth.

Sabine Schmitz was the best-placed of the Chevrolet drivers again, but this time she was outside of the points in 11th, with just two Chevrolets making the start with Tom Coronel ruled out due to damage in the first race and had to give up his third position on the grid.

López fought off a late charge from Michelisz, whose Honda closed up on the second lap to the Citroën driver who was informed to “manage his engine” by the team, but the Argentinian still went on to take the win with a margin of just under half a second and extends his lead in the drivers’ standings to 69 points over Tiago Monteiro, with Rob Huff now 71 points behind in third, subject to the result of the court of appeal’s hearing into Honda’s exclusion from Hungary and Morocco.

The tyre issues which affected Race 1 didn’t resurface in Race 2, but due to the loss of the three cars of Coronel, Monteiro and Muller, the race began with just 14 cars in the WTCC class, with the 17 ETCC cars battling behind starting on a separate grid.

The next round of the WTCC takes place at Moscow Raceway in two weeks’ time.