There were wins for Yvan Muller and James Nash in rounds 13 and 14 of the 2013 World Touring Car Championship in Portugal on Sunday.
The World Touring Car Championships travelled to Portugal on Sunday.
Rounds 13 and 14 were the order of the day – and the big question just at the halfway mark of the season was: could anyone catch Championship leader Yvan Muller?
Heading into the weekend the Frenchman’s total was almost double that of his rivals; 246 against Gabriele Tarquini’s 133.
Muller added to his total again with pole position and captured a lights-to-flag victory in race one (round 13).
After Tiago Montiero’s turbocharger failure in free practice on Saturday (June 29), Tarquini suffered the same fate in the other Castrol Team Honda car during the race.
However, he rewarded his home crowd with a great drive to recover from 17th to ninth place.
Besides Tarquini, several other drivers failed to finish the race.
Norbert Michelisz made contact with the wall on the second lap and pulled up, while a bizarre incident on lap 9 saw the BMW of Franz Engstler making contact with the rear of a marshal’s pickup truck that was on its way to recover Tarquini’s car.
Fredy Barth then spun whilst trying to avoid Engstler’s car and the pickup, which brought out the safety car for two laps.
Muller won from his RML team-mate Tom Chilton in second, with Michel Nykjaer finishing third.
In the second race of the day (round 14) Muller was unable to do the double.
James Nash made a solid start to assume the race lead early on, with Rob Huff in a Munich Motorsport SEAT Leon and Michel Nykjaer in the Nika Racing Chevrolet eager to fight for second place.
Nykjaer pushed Huff right to the chequered flag, but the reigning world champion held off the challenge to finish second – forcing Nykjaer to settle for his second third-place finish of the day.
