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Four SEAT men - in the order Rydell, Tarquini, Muller and Gené
- are on top of the Drivers' Championship, while SEAT have already built a solid
advantage in the Manufacturers' Championship.
Even
though it was Chevrolet's Alain Menu who began from pole position for the second
race, it was SEAT Sport annihilation. Tiago Monteiro took the chequered flag
with a spotless drive throughout the race after he took the lead into the first
corner.
Rickard Rydell and
Gabriele Tarquini battled for second position with the Swede coming out on top
after Tarquini ran wide on lap 14. Rydell had another great start coming up from
seventh to fourth on the first lap. Tarquini had jumped up to third at the start
ahead of eventual fourth placed team mate Yvan Muller. First race winner Jordi
Gené, finished in fifth after the problems for Chevrolet's Alain Menu and Nicola
Larini, the latter failed to finish the race after a rear suspension collapsed
following a collision with another car. Gené was battling with Muller for fifth
position, but he came off worse and Muller proceeded to overtake Menu.
Menu ran wide and fell down to tenth position,
allowing the SEAT's to dominate. He battled back up to seventh, behind Tom
Coronel who rounded off SEAT's top six positions.
BMW
UK's Andy Priaulx finished in the top BMW car in eighth place as he fought with
Menu and Huff for most of the race, as the BMWs struggled once again. Priaulx
was the only German manufacturer's driver to score during the weekend. Robert
Huff had another eventful race: after a poor start he made his way back up to
eighth, only for him to drop places down to tenth. For the rest of the race he
battled with Priaulx and Menu and eventually finished just outside the points in
ninth.
Pierre-Yves Corthals
won the Independents' class to add to his triumph in race one. He is now on
joint points with Stefano D'Aste, who finished behind him in fourteenth, and
Olivier Tielemans who had won both races in Brazil.
The start was clean but, once again, Jörg
Müller and Alessandro Zanardi had clashes during the first lap, and Müller later left the track but rejoined to finish the race
behind Zanardi in twelfth.
The championship will
resume for rounds 5 and 6 in Valencia, Spain, on May 17th and
18th.
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