It was a triumphal start of the season for the new Cruze 1.6 turbo, as the blue boys swept the floor in Curitiba: Rob Huff won Race 1 ahead of Muller and local hero Cacá Bueno, while Alain Menu (6th in Race 1) took victory in Race 2, with Muller, Huff and Bueno taking 3rd, 4th and 5th, respectively. The Chevrolet team could have not dreamt of a better scenario, as it leaves Brazil with plenty of cups and points.
Huff and Menu win the two races, with Muller on podium twice and Bueno once
It was a triumphal start of the season for the new Cruze 1.6 turbo, as the blue boys swept the floor in Curitiba: Rob Huff won Race 1 ahead of Muller and local hero Cacá Bueno, while Alain Menu (6th in Race 1) took victory in Race 2, with Muller, Huff and Bueno taking 3rd, 4th and 5th, respectively. The Chevrolet team could have not dreamt of a better scenario, as it leaves Brazil with plenty of cups and points.
Race 1 was relatively quite, with Huff, Muller and Bueno making a perfect use of their three top positions in the grid to control the race from flag to flag, while Menu managed to climb some positions to finish sixth.
The Swiss had been given a nice present on Saturday evening after qualifying, when the sanction imposed on one of the SEATs re-instated him in the top ten, which meant starting from the pole in Race 2. While he couldn’t use this advantage at the start, he then put a superb performance, passing Tarquini and Coronel after fierce duels and taking a welldeserved win, while Muller, Huff and Bueno finished just behind Coronel.
With these results, the new Cruze 1.6 turbo proves it is the most competitive car in the WTCC and the Chevrolet team honors in the best possible way its status of double World Champion.
• QUOTESRob Huff (1st / 4th): “It has been a brilliant week-end for the entire team and, clearly, toleave Brazil as the championship leader makes me very happy! Race 1 was prettyuneventful, we just had to finish the job we had started in qualifying. Race 2 was veryintense, we all were very close. My engine stalled a little bit behind Coronel and that’s whenYvan passed me, we had a good fight in the following two corners, but everything went okand we can be very happy with these outstanding results.”
Alain Menu (6th / 1st): “Definitely a much better day than yesterday! I was lucky of thepositive consequences of the sanction to Barth, but after all the bad luck last year, I think itwas just a fair compensation... In Race 1, I climbed a few positions and found myselfbehind the BMWs of Coronel and Poulsen, who were fighting hard. I stayed away from that,as I didn’t want to take any risk ahead of Race 2. In Race 2, I had a poor start and then hadto fight to regain the lead. I could pass Tarquini relatively easily but Coronel was muchharder. I knew the only place where I could make it was at the end of the straight, where hewas as fast as me, but where I could brake a little bit later, so I did not miss the opportunitywhen he left me some space on the inside.”
With these results, the new Cruze 1.6 turbo proves it is the most competitive car in the WTCC and the Chevrolet team honors in the best possible way its status of double World Champion.
