Suzuka, Race 1: Menu wins from Huff and Nykjaer

Muller finishes fourth

Alain Menu and Rob Huff claimed another 1-2 finish for Chevrolet, but they were definitely helped by the happenings of the race’s early stages.

At first, most of their main contenders – Robert Dahlgren, Tom Coronel, Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro – were eliminated in two different incidents at the start.

Later, Yvan Muller lost the lead and eventually dropped to fourth because of a wrong set up choice.

This made things easier for Menu (who pocketed his fourth victory of the season), Huff (who reduced the gap in the standings to ten points), and Nykjær (who claimed his first WTCC podium besides winning the Yokohama Trophy).

In front of his home crowd Yukinori Taniguchi too obtained his best result ever in the world championship by finishing seventh behind Colin Turkington.

Key moments
Start – two different incidents call the safety car in; Nykjær hits Dahlgren who spins and crashes; seconds after Coronel and Tarquini come together and cause a pile up that involves Monteiro, Villa, Barth and Yoshimoto. Only Tarquini and Villa can rejoin.
Lap 7 – the race resumes, Muller leads from Menu and Huff
Lap 8 – Menu overtakes Muller for the lead
Lap 9 – Oriola pits and rejoins after four laps
Lap 10 – Muller drops from second to fourth behind Huff and Nykjær, after a mistake
Lap 14 – Turkington overtakes Taniguchi for sixth
Lap 15 – Tarquini overtakes Michelisz for ninth
Lap 16 – Dudukalo spins at the exit of the final turn and avoids hitting the pit wall by inches
Lap 20 – Muller closes in on Nykjær who defends his third position
Lap 23 – Tarquini tries one last attempt to steal eighth place from Bennani, but in vain

Withdrawals
R. Dahlgren: race incident; T. Monteiro: race incident; H. Yoshimoto, DNC: race incident; T. Coronel, DNC: race incident; F. Barth: race incident