Macau, Race 1: López scores a record victory

José María López has added the Macau diamond to his 2014 crown by winning authoritatively Race 1 at the Guia Circuit.

The Argentine pulled away from pole at the start and kept control of the race, although is gap was never very consistent, ending with a 2.7-second margin. With this tenth seasonal success, the Citroën driver broke the record of most wins in the same season (Muller had scored 9 in 2012). He also became, after Augusto Farfus and Norbert Michelisz, the third WTCC driver victorious at Macau on his first appearance.

Behind López, a compact Honda trio composed of Michelisz, Tarquini and Monteiro, who conducted an impressive race proving the excellent race pace of the Japanese cars. They were followed by Muller and Loeb, who ran third in the initial laps, with the Citroën cars being less dominating today.

Franz Engstler won among the TC2T cars.

Key moments
— Start – Excellent start of López and Michelisz, with Tarquini and Monteiro who pass Muller too
— Lap 1 – Scary moment for Michelisz in one of the braking points, but the Hungarian manages to stay on track and keep 2nd, while López in the lead pulls away. Loeb is 3rd ahead of Tarquini, Monteiro, Muller, Coronel, Huff, Valente and Ma. Chilton is only 16th after a poor start
— Lap 2 – Ma passes Valente for 9th and attacks Huff
— Lap 3 – Loeb attacks Michelisz at Lisboa but is forced to go wide, being passed by Tarquini, Monteiro and Muller. Ma is 8th after passing Huff
— Lap 5 – Bad luck for the Asian drivers of Campos Racing: Kwong hits the wall at san Francisco, and Lok does the same at Melco hairpin
— Lap 6 – Valente stops in the pits, while Bennani passes Huff for 9th
— Lap 7 – Muller and Loeb increase the pressure on the Honda cars, but situation doesn’t change
— Lap 8 – López leads by 4.5 seconds on the Honda trio. Drama for Bennani, as the Moroccan is surprised by a move of Kwong, hits the SEAT, crashes into wall and retires
— Lap 10 – Monteiro tries to pass Tarquini (whose bonnet hood is swinging) at Lisboa, but with no success. López wins ahead of the three Honda cars and team-mates Muller and Loeb. Engstler takes success in TC2T