Paul Ricard, Race 2: Defending WTCC champion López resists Monteiro to win

José María López held off a charging Tiago Monteiro to win the Main Race at the WTCC JVCKENWOOD Race of France and take an early lead in the FIA World Touring Car Championship.

While López led the race from pole position and pulled away out fron, Monteiro had to recover from losing second place to Yvan Muller. On lap 9 he finally got past Muller after contact at the final corner, with his Honda team-mate Norbert Michelisz following him through into third.

Monteiro set about cutting the gap to López and the lead pair were right together going onto the final lap. Citroën driver López just held on by 0.284 seconds, denying Honda a double victory at Circuit Paul Ricard.

Muller finished fourth ahead of LADA driver Nicky Catsburg. Opening Race winner Rob Huff was forced wide at the first corner after contact from Gabriele Tarquini, but recovered brilliantly to finish in sixth after passing Hugo Valente, who was also involved in the Turn 1 skirmish.

Mehdi Bennani took the WTCC Trophy honours for the second time in eighth overall ahead of his Sébastien Loeb Racing team-mate Tom Chilton. Polestar’s Fredrik Ekblom completed the top 10, but team-mate Thed Björk failed to finish. Tom Coronel beat John Filippi to 11th by just 0.024s in an all-RML Cruze battle.

After the opening weekend, López leads the drivers’ standings on 38 points, with Monteiro on 34 and Huff on 33.