Closest battle in history in Yokohama Trophy

The closest battle in the World Touring Car Championship’s history is taking place within the independents’ trophy, with the top four drivers in the separated by just two points after eight rounds.

In previous years, the closest gap at this same point in the season was in 2008, when the two Proteam drivers Sergio Hernández and Stefano D’Aste were separated by one point after Oschersleben, but the gap to third was a further 25 points to the Exagon Engineering entered SEAT León of Pierre-Yves Corthals.

This year, Norbert Michelisz currently holds the lead of the independents’ trophy with 79 points, but after picking up only two points at Oschersleben, the Hungarian driver’s margin has been slashed to just one point from Liqui-Moly Team Engstler driver Kristian Poulsen and Bamboo Engineering’s Darryl O’Young, both tied on 78.

All three will be weary of Franz Engstler’s recent performances however. The 50-year-old German has taken three independent wins in the last four races, and also became the first independent driver to win a race outright last time out in Germany. Engstler is now just one point behind Poulsen and O’Young on 77.

Just another four points behind on 73 is WTCC rookie Javier Villa Garcia. The young Spaniard is the top placed of the Proteam Racing BMW drivers and has recently seen a downturn in results after picking up just one point in the four races at Portugal and the UK.

Danish driver Michel Nykjaer is also still right in the hunt, the top placed of the SUNRED Engineering drivers on 69 points, just 10 behind Michelisz (the equivilent of a single victory in the independents’ category).

Though with 118 points still available from the remaining four rounds, with double points available for the races at the season finale at Macau, statistically anyone can still be the independents’ champion.

“All three of us in the top three have had two bad weekends like this,” said Darryl O’Young to TouringCarTimes. “We keep coming up but Norbert and Kristian are having worse weekends, but it’s really allowing Engstler to catch-up.”

“Our race distance pace is our biggest problem right now. We can be quick in qualifying for a couple of laps but we’re working a lot on figuring out the race distance. It is our weak point now, I usually end up defending quite a bit mid-race, which is not what I want to do I want to be attacking.”

Kristian Poulsen, who led the independents’ standings earlier in the year after a strong run of good results has had trouble in the last few rounds. Despite taking the joint highest number of independent victories as Michelisz and Engstler at four, his last was at Brno back in June.

“The last four races, total disaster,” said Poulsen to TouringCarTimes.

“We’re going to push as hard as possible. Darryl is doing a good job, he’s always getting points, he’s struggling a lot when he’s driving but he gets the points…and that’s the important thing.”