Tarquini holds off Chevrolets for win in Belgium

Gabriele Tarquini held off Rob Huff and Alain Menu to take victory in the second race at Zolder, in what may be his final race with the SEAT TDI engine.

Fredy Barth was scheduled to be on pole position, but with the Swiss driver’s car too damaged to continue after race one, and with a number of cars dropping out of Parc Ferme and making additional repairs to their cars, the redrawn grid put Tarquini on pole ahead of the three RML Chevrolets.

Tarquini held off the Chevrolets throughout all 13 laps, with Rob Huff fighting hard behind him for the first seven laps of the race. On lap eight, Huff tried to pass the SEAT down the back straight, but the two made contact through T5. Huff shortcut the chicane and took the lead briefly, but slowed with apparent damage, falling as far down as seventh place, before recovering to finish in sixth behind Michel Nykjaer.

Darryl O’Young worked his way up from his revised grid position of ninth, and with all the action ahead of him eventually finished fourth overall and the top independent runner in only his second race with the new Cruze 1.6T.

2010 champion Yvan Muller battled with team-mate Menu through the early stages for third, but slowed on lap seven with a mechanical problem and drove into the pits to retire.

With Huff falling back, it was down to Alain Menu to try and pass Tarquini, but to no avail, with the Swiss driver finishing second with Tiago Monteiro claiming the final position on the podium.

Robert Dahlgren finished seventh for Volvo, with Norbert Michelisz the top classified BMW, passing Aleksei Dudukalo with three laps to go after starting last with the car requiring repairs between races.

Javier Villa again picked up points with tenth place in race two for Proteam Racing.

Rob Huff leads the championship with 70 points, just one point ahead of two-times BTCC champion Alain Menu, with Gabriele Tarquini now third, 19 points down.