Rob huff wins first race in Valencia

Robert Huff has taken the win in the first of today’s races at the Valencia track in Spain. The Chevrolet driver fought his way up, after he had dropped to fourth at the start. Second was Gabriele Tarquini, the only driver who was able to keep up with Huff’s pace on the dry track.

At the start, pole sitter Yvan Muller dropped back two places, after Rob Huff and Jordi Gene looked to make a jump start. However, so far the two drivers are not under investigation by the stewards. Gene went into the first corner leading, with Tarquini in second, Muller in third and Rob Huff right behind them.

Huff soon managed to overtake Muller, and as Gene made an error on lap 3, Huff and Tarquini also got ahead of the Spaniard. At the end of lap 3, Huff made the decisive move by overtaking Tarquini.

Lap 4 saw Augusto Farfus going wide and spinning of the track, taking Rydell with him into the gravel trap. Rydell was able to continue, but both drivers are under investigation by the stewards.

A little further down the the field Franz Engstler tried to shut the door for Olivier Tielemans to soon. The pair tangled and Engstler ended up in the gravel. Stefano D’aste won the race in the Independents category and took the lead in the standings, Tielemans finished in second and is now two points behind the Italian in the Independents Trophy.

On the eight lap James Thompson, who was lying in seventh, got tapped on the back by Andy Priaulx and dropped two places. Two laps later the Briton got hit again twice by Tiago Monteiro, and dropped even further back. All three drivers are investigated by the stewards.

The battle over 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th was hot, as Jordi Gene was holding up the pack. Yvan Muller tried every trick to get past the Spaniard, but did not succeed. Nicola Larini overtook Jörg Müller for 5th on lap 9, but Müller took the place back on lap 12.

Alain Menu, who started from the back of the grid, drove all the way up to nineth, and made the jump into the points on lap 10 by overtaking Alessandro Zanardi. The Italian BMW-driver dropped even further back a lap later, as he ran out of tarmac and had to take a trip through the gravel trap.

The second race of the day will start this afternoon at 15:00 CET and will be broadcasted live on Eurosport.