Valencia, race 1 - Muller takes championship lead

Yvan Muller claimed a crucial victory in Valencia’s first race, which enabled him to oust his Chevrolet team-mate Rob Huff from the leadership in the Drivers’ Championship.

Huff was forced to recover after being involved in a collision with Monteiro and Menu; the Briton managed to salvage a fifth place, however he now finds himself nine points behind Muller.

Menu and Monteiro are currently under investigation for the incident with Huff.

Gabriele Tarquini risked to upset Chevrolet; the Italian took a great start to jump into the lead at the first corner. However some misfiring problems forced him to slow down and eventually to stop.

Tom Coronel inherited the last spot on the podium, narrowly beating Kristian Poulsen who won the Yokohama Trophy.

The fight for fifth position was extremely exciting, with Huff emerging as the winner, closely followed by Javier Villa, Norbert Michelisz, Tiago Monteiro, Robert Dahlgren and Stefano D’Aste.

Key moments
Start – after one aborted attempt because of irregular line up, Tarquini takes the inside line and overtakes the whole Muller/Huff front row
Lap 2 – Monteiro hits Menu who hits Huff, the latter spins and rejoins in 11th place
Lap 3 – Huff overtakes Engstler and Nykjær and moves up to ninth
Lap 4 – Muller steals the lead from Tarquini at Turn 2
Lap 5 – Sigacev pits for repairs after a collision with another car
Lap 5 – Barth and Bennani come together and retire
Lap 7 – Engstler retires due to a technical problem
Lap 8 – Menu overtakes Tarquini for second; Tarquini slows down with engine problems
Lap 9 – Coronel overtakes Monteiro for third
Lap 10 – Poulsen and Huff overtake Monteiro for fourth and fifth
Lap 11 – Villa overtakes Monteiro for sixth
Lap 12 – Dahlgren overtakes Nykjær for ninth
Lap 13 – Michelisz overtakes Monteiro for seventh

Withdrawals
F. Barth: race incident; M. Bennani: race incident; F. Engstler: engine; G. Tarquini: misfire