Photo: WTCC Media

Tiago Monteiro leads Honda 1-2-3 in China race two

By

Portuguese driver Tiago Monteiro has taken his first win for Honda and his first win in three years at the Shanghai International Circuit, leading from start to finish ahead of Honda team-mate Gabriele Tarquini and the privateer car of Norbert Michelisz.

As with race one, the race distance was reduced to ten laps, with all cars opting to start on slick tyres this time out.

Monteiro managed to hold first place ahead of Tarquini at the start, while there was drama further behind as Nika Racing driver Rickard Rydell was half-spun by Tom Coronel’s BMW into the first corner, which dropped the Swede down the order.

The two JAS Hondas began to pull out a gap on Norbert Michelisz’s Zengõ Honda, who had passed the Münnich Motorsport SEAT of Rob Huff at the start, but last year’s champion continued to hound the Hungarian throughout the race but was unable to get ahead.

Yvan Muller was the man on the move, up to sixth from tenth at the start in his RML Chevrolet, but found himself following James Nash’s bamboo-engineering Chevrolet for much of the race. The four-time champion was able to put a move on the Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy points leader on lap seven around the outside of Turns 1, 2 and 3 to take fifth position.

Muller ended the race battling former Chevrolet team-mate Rob Huff for fourth, which relieved some pressure from Norbert Michelisz, but Muller had to settle for fifth with James Nash taking the independents’ class win with sixth overall ahead of Pepe Oriola’s Chevrolet and Tom Coronel, the best placed of the BMW drivers.

Tom Chilton picked up a solitary point with tenth, while Tarquini picked up 18 points for second and extends the gap for second in the drivers’ standings up to 22 points ahead of Chilton before the season finale at Macau in two weeks’ time.

Nash’s win in the independents’ class, with MacDowall finishing fifth in the classification, means the Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy will go to the wire in Macau, with 41 points separating the two bamboo team-mates with 43 points available at the double points finale.