Huff wins race one, SEAT have drivers title
Rob Huff led from start to finish to take his third win of the season. Tarquini finishes 2nd and makes certain that a SEAT will win the 2009 drivers title.
Tarquini goes into the last race with a 6 point lead over fellow SEAT driver Yvan Muller, who will start 4th in the next race.
At the start, Andy Priaulx was forced wide in the second placed BMW and suffered severe damage to his car, as Tiago Monteiro & Gabriele Tarquini made great starts to move up to second and third.
On the second lap, BMW contender Augusto Farfus passed team mate Jorg Muller for 5th, but found himself held up behind the spaniard Jordi Gené, who was playing tailgunner for Tarquini.
By the end of the lap, Monteiro had closed up on Rob Huff and put on a strong challenge against the Englishman to try and take the lead.
On lap 6, independents leader Tom Coronel loses a few positions to the BMW of Sergio Hernandez & SEAT of Rickard Rydell, but is still ahead of Chevrolet’s Nicola Larini & rival Felix Porteiro.
On lap 8, strategy starts to come into play as Tiago Monteiro starts to drop back from Huff, initially dropping back to behind Tarquini & Gené.
The final lap saw the biggest battle of the race for eighth – with Tarquini now finishing second, BMW wanted to put themselves in the best position to claim the manufacturers title, so Farfus & Jorg Muller fought their way back behind Monteiro & Yvan Muller to claim the front row for race two.
Gabriele Tarquini now leads the championship by 6 points from Yvan Muller, meaning Yvan will need a podium position at least in order to win a second championship.
SEAT’s strong result means they now have a 10 point lead over BMW in the manufacturers, although BMW are on target for a strong result in race two, since only the top two cars can score points and there are few cars likely between the BMW’s and SEAT – SEAT are also well placed to secure the manufacturers title as well.
Tom Coronel dropped back to 13th overall, but still picked up the win in the independents class and so secures the Yokohama Independents Trophy.
