Suzuka, Race 1: Michelisz wins, Muller is champion

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