Suzuka, Race 1: Michelisz wins, Muller is champion

Michelisz wins from MacDowall, Muller is 3rd

By Franck Drui

22 September 2013 - 08:25
Suzuka, Race 1: Michelisz wins, (...)

Norbert Michelisz converted his pole position into his first victory for Honda, giving the Japanese manufacturer a special triumph on its own playground.

Yvan Muller finished the race in third position, behind the Yokohama Trophy winner Alex MacDowall, and clinched his fourth WTCC title.

The first race at Suzuka was split in three parts: the early laps were full of action with close fights for the point position between several group of cars; halfway through the 26-lap distance drivers adopted a more conservative pace; the in the final laps the battle intensified again with plenty of contacts and overtaking.

And this cost Tarquini and Monteiro the possibility to make Honda’s result even greater.

Key moments
 Start – Michelisz sprints to the lead from MacDowall; Monteiro passes Muller for 3rd
 Lap 1 – Monteiro tries to overtake MacDowall on the outside at T1 but drivers wide and drops to 7th
 Lap 3 – Tarquini and Oriola have a close fight for 5th place
 Lap 4 – multiple contacts between Tarquini, Oriola, Nash and Monteiro; Nash overtakes Oriola for 6th
 Lap 5 – Thompson overtakes Coronel for 10th
 Lap 8 – Yoshimoto runs wide at T1 and loses 14th place to Monje
 Lap 9 – Oriola, Monteiro, Huff, Bennani and Basseng battle for 7th
 Lap 12 – O’Young overtakes Kozlovskiy for 18th
 Lap 18 – Monteiro dives inside Oriola at T6, they make contact and Monteiro hits a pile of tyres; Thompson moves up to 6th
 Lap 19 – Tarquini loses 5th place because of a puncture
 Lap 20 – Oriola is given a drive through for the incident with Monteiro
 Lap 23 – Huff overtakes Coronel for 7th
 Lap 24 – MacDowall defends second place from Muller and Chilton
 Lap 26 – Michelisz wins from MacDowall, Muller is 3rd and clinches the title

Pos. Driver Car Time
1 Norbert MICHELISZ Honda Civic 26 laps - 23m58.613s
2 Alex MACDOWALL Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T + 4.832
3 Yvan MULLER Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T + 5.149
4 Tom CHILTON Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T + 5.422
5 James NASH Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T + 14.377
6 James THOMPSON Lada Granta + 25.611
7 Rob HUFF SEAT Leon WTCC + 25.786
8 Tom CORONEL BMW 320 TC + 25.940
9 Marc BASSENG SEAT Leon WTCC + 26.247
10 Fernando MONJE SEAT Leon WTCC + 26.534
11 Mehdi BENNANI BMW 320 TC + 26.747
12 Takuya IZAWA Honda Civic + 27.062
13 Darryl O’YOUNG BMW 320 TC + 28.805
14 Charles NG BMW 320 TC + 34.138
15 Mikhail KOZLOVSKIY Lada Granta + 36.211
16 René MUNNICH SEAT Leon WTCC + 36.280
17 Yukinori TANIGUCHI BMW 320 TC + 36.985
18 Hiroki YOSHIMOTO Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T + 44.883
19 Masaki KANO BMW 320 TC + 48.667
20 Jeronimo BADARACO Chevrolet Cruze LT + 52.433
21 Filipe de SOUZA Chevrolet Cruze LT + 1 lap
22 Kin Veng NG Chevrolet Cruze LT + 1 lap
23 Ka Lok MAK BMW 320si + 1 lap
24 Henry HO BMW 320si + 2 laps
25 Pepe ORIOLA Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T + 5 laps
26 Tom BOARDMAN SEAT Leon WTCC + 5 laps
27 Gabriele TARQUINI Honda Civic + 5 laps
28 Tiago MONTEIRO Honda Civic + 7 laps
29 Stefano D’ASTE BMW 320 TC + 7 laps

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