Four-way battle for WTCC title honours

After Valencia, only four drivers can win the 2010 FIA World Touring Car Championship, with Chevrolet drivers Muller and Huff, SR-Sport’s Tarquini and BMW’s Andy Priaulx all in with a shot.

Yvan Muller’s two second place finishes at Valencia put him 25 points in the lead over the BMW of Andy Priaulx, whilst Gabriele Tarquini closed right back up thanks to his win in race one and third place in race two. The Italian driver is now only four points behind the triple-world champion.

The championship outsider is Robert Huff, who is 69 points back from his teammate with 100 left to be had, but would need catastrophic races to befall for Muller, Tarquini and Priaulx, and to score top two finishes in every race remaining in order to be crowned champion, which means though statistically he’s in the running, in all practicality it’s now a three man race.

In the Yokohama independents’ category, Kristian Poulsen’s recent string of four consecutive wins in the class has catapulted the Danish driver up to second place in the standings, despite missing the first two race meetings of the season.

The Dane is now 31 points back from Proteam Motorsport’s Sergio Hernández, who has a stronghold on the championship, but with double points available at Macau, any driver in the top eight can theoretically still win the Yokohama Independents’ Trophy.

That means both Proteam drivers Hernández and D’Aste, the Wiechers-Sport driver Mehdi Bennani, both bamboo-engineering drivers Darryl O’Young and Harry Vaulkhard (although Vaulkhard has relinquished his seat in the team), Franz Engstler and West Surrey Racing driver Colin Turkington (who are yet to confirm whether they’ll be appearing at the final two meetings) can all in theory be the trophy champion.

The championship takes a six week break before resuming in Japan, with the season finale at Macau three weeks later.