Yvan Muller delighted to leave RML with a win
Four-time champion Yvan Muller put a stamp on the 2013 WTCC season with a win in the first race at Macau, with a typical lights-to-flag victory for the Frenchman, his eighth of the year and his last with RML before he leaves to join Citroën in 2014.
After breaking the qualifying lap record in qualifying on Friday, Muller led the way at the start in what was a very uneventful first race at the Guia circuit, leading the whole way ahead of Honda’s Tiago Monteiro.
“That was my target, to leave the RML LUKOIL team with a victory,” said Muller. “I reached my first target, and that was to bring my car back home in one piece for race one. In race two, it was not reached unfortunately.
“For me it was a fantastic season, a great atmosphere with the team and pleased to work all hard all year and for sure they deserved to be on the podium with me as they did a fantastic job all the way through.”
In the second race, Muller was the victim in a number of incidents. First he and Tiago Monteiro went side-by-side through San Francisco on lap three, running into the wall on the left-hand side but was able to continue. Later in the race, Muller was forced to come to a stop when he came across the stricken cars of team-mate Tom Chilton and the PAS Macau Honda Accord of Eurico De Jesus at Maternity, when he was run into by the Chevrolet of Filipe De Souza, which saw the second red flag of the race.
Despite significant damage, the team were able to repair the car during the subsequent red flag stoppage, and he was able to move up to sixth before the end of the race.
“Unfortunately for the last race everybody is a bit excited,” said Muller to Eurosport during the red flag. “I was stopped and some guy behind came through at full speed and hit me and broke my car.
“The marshals didn’t tell us over there to slow down, so the top ten cars were OK, but everyone behind came in too fast. These guys, we should not accept them if they don’t do at least half a season,” commented Muller.
Muller finishes the championship with a points total of 431, just two shy of his 2011 points record, and with the largest points margin in the Championship’s history, 191 points clear of Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini.
