Photo: WTCC Media

Tom Chilton wins eventful Termas de Río Hondo opening race

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Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Tom Chilton took his first win of the season at Termas de Río Hondo, Argentina, taking the lead at the start and never looked back. The Brit crossed the line ahead of Honda’s Rob Huff, who resisted the attacks of Citroën’s Yvan Muller in the latter part of the race.

At the start, Chilton immediately took the lead of the race from Campos Racing’s John Filippi, with Honda’s Tiago Monteiro also having a good launch and was up to second, but the Portuguese driver lost ground as he tried to get ahead of Chilton for the lead.

Monteiro then slipped down to fifth with Honda team-mate Rob Huff and Citroën of Yvan Muller getting past him.

On the second lap, Esteban Guerrieri began to slow in the Campos Racing Chevrolet down and several cars overtook him. The team therefore called him back to the pits in order to try to fix a technical problem on his Chevrolet in time for the main race.

Filippi was still in second and defending well from Huff, as Citroën’s José María López started making up ground from the back of the grid, where he had started due to his engine change penalty, and was in ninth by lap five.

Filippi made a mistake by going wide at Turn 1 on lap seven, which allowed Huff through, with Muller and Monteiro passing the Frenchman after a just few corners. Bennani also tried to attack Filippi at the last corner, but the two made contact, for which the Moroccan got a black & white flag. The incident triggered more mayhem, as Coronel made full use of the chance and went up to sixth, followed through by López and Michelisz, relegating Bennani to ninth.

As the Coronel tried to attack Filippi on lap nine at the chicane, the ROAL Motorsport driver ended up being passed by López and Michelisz. On the following lap the Citroën driver got past Filippi, taking fifth place away from the Campos Racing driver.

Chilton went on to win the race despite Huff and Muller closing in on him towards the end, with Tiago Monteiro not too far behind in fourth. López finished fifth ahead of Michelisz. Coronel finished seventh, ahead of Bennani and Thompson, while pole sitter Filippi closed out the top ten and scored a point outright.

López’s advantage in the championship over Monteiro is reduced from 106 points to 104, with the Argentinian starting the next race from pole position.