Yvan Muller wins race one in Hungary ahead of Michelisz

Yvan Muller took his third win of the season at the Hungaroring, with the RML Chevrolet driver finishing ahead of local favourite Norbert Michelisz’s Zengõ Motorsport Honda Civic.

Muller held the lead into the first corner at the start, whilst Michelisz was able to fend off Castrol Honda Racing’s Gabriele Tarquini for second position.

The whole field got through Turn 1 without incident, but all the drama was saved for Turn 2 with ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel running into the back of Tiago Monteiro’s Honda, spinning him around whilst behind a multi-car incident saw Lada’s James Thompson and Tuenti Racing’s Pepe Oriola taken out of the race, and the BMWs of Darryl O’Young and Fredy Barth also involved and pitting for repairs.

On lap two, Monteiro, now down to 12th place, locked up with a possible technical failure into Turn 1 and hit the wall. All of the cars were able to be recovered under local waved yellow flags.

Tom Coronel passed Mehdi Bennani’s Proteam BMW for fifth further on the lap, and then the two drivers passed Tom Chilton’s RML Chevrolet three laps later.

Coronel then became involved in a race long battle with Münnich Motorsport’s Rob Huff for fourth, with the Briton having had a fantastic start from eighth on the grid. Coronel’s most desperate attempt came on lap 10, but as he was forced wide around the outside of Turn 4 this allowed Bennani back up into fifth position.

Yvan Muller led the race throughout, though Norbert Michelisz closed in to the crowd’s pleasure in the final laps and crossed the line just over half a second behind.

Gabriele Tarquini had a rather anonymous race in third, finishing 12 seconds behind the leading pair, whilst Rob Huff equalled his best result of the season in fourth.

Mehdi Bennani’s fifth saw the Moroccan driver take the honours in the Yokohama Trophy, and will certainly be a threat in race two where he starts from the front row of the grid.

Tom Coronel finished in sixth position, but both he and team-mate Darryl O’Young are under investigaton for the incidents at Turn 2 at the start of the race.

Tom Chilton finished in seventh place ahead of the two bamboo-engineering Chevrolets of Alex MacDowall and James Nash, with Nika Racing’s Michel Nykjaer completing the top ten.

Yvan Muller extends his championship lead from 24 to 36 points ahead of the second race where he will start in tenth position.

Race two gets underway at 14:50 CET.