Muller wins ahead of Tarquini

The top two of the first race were turned around at the flag of the second race. Yvan Muller won the race ahead of Gabriele Tarquini, making it another double for SEAT Sport. Chevrolet was once again on the podium, this time Alain Menu being the one ending up in third.

Even though Muller and Tarquini started from seventh and eighth on the grid, it didn’t take long before they were among the front runners. After the first lap Muller was already on the back of Alain Menu, who had started from pole position.

He took no prisoners, as he immediately attacked the Swiss and took over the lead.
Tarquini was in fourth after the first lap, and he too didn’t need long to overtake third placed man Zanardi and started to hunt down Alain Menu for second.

After he had done so, he was all over the back of Muller, but even though he tried throughout the entire race, he wasn’t able to overtake his team mate for the lead.

Augusto Farfus, who started from 22nd on the grid after he failed to finish the first race, made an impressive run through the field as well. He overtook a lot of cars, to end the race in eighth place.

However, as his main rivals Tarquini and Muller in the championship finished at the front of the field, he has lost 17 points over them this weekend, to find himself with a 18 points gap in the standings behind championship leader Tarquini. Yvan Muller is seven points behind the Italian.

After their misfortune at Oschersleben at the last round, where Jaap van Lagen was denied Lada’s first championship points after he was punted off by Nicola Larini, at Imola they got what they deserved. James Thompson scored two point finishes, giving him a total of six points.

Where there were a lot of crashes in the first race, the second race was very clean. The only man to end in the gravel trap was Tiago Monteiro, after he clipped the back of Tom Boardman and went off at high speed approaching Rivazza corner.