An incident-packed race began even before the warm-up lap, when Tarquini’s teammate Aleksei Dudukalo was given a drive-through penalty because all four of his car’s wheels weren’t on the ground when the five-minute board was shown on the grid. In addition, the Ford Focus of Team AON’s James Nash and the Team Engstler BMW of Charles Ng failed to start the race after incidents during Race 1.

Pole-sitter Stefano D’Aste was first into Turn 1, but the three Chevrolet Cruze cars of Huff, Muller and Alain Menu were quickly threatening D’Aste and all three took their chance when the BMW ran wide, as did Tarquini. The all-Chevrolet top three was short-lived, however, as Tarquini grabbed third place from Menu on lap 2. TomCoronel then passed Menu on lap 4 before the Swiss driver pulled up with a broken rim following a contact with D’Aste.

The Huff-Muller 1-2 then survived unscathed until the chequered flag, despite a last-lap incident that saw third-placed Tarquini make contact with the rear of Muller’s car. Tarquini sportingly chose to take no advantage from the collision.

Behind the battle for the podium positions, Tom Chilton finished 10th in his Ford Focus after surviving an incident on the second lap with Tiago Monteiro that saw the Portuguese driver retire from the race. A similar fate befell Alex MacDowall and Gabor Weber, while D’Aste managed to finish in 14th place.

In the Yokohama Trophy, it was Pepe Oriola’s turn to pick up maximum points, while Norbert Michelisz finished second and Mehdi Bennani a brilliant third.

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