The Brands Hatch circuit has been today venue of two complicated races for the SEAT Sport drivers who, despite the difficulties, have been able to keep the leadership both in the manufacturer’s and drivers overall standings after the British race, now that eighth of the twelve meetings of the Touring Car World Championship have already been raced.
The scoring results of Gabriele Tarquini, Rickard Rydell and Tiago Monteiro, and the two points achieved by Yvan Muller in the second race allowed the team to keep their position at the end of the Brands Hatch meeting in which Alain Menu and Augusto Farfus were the winners. The predictions of the SEAT Sport engineers were right, and just as they had forecasted, the recent changes in the application of the technical regulations made it more difficult to follow the pace of the rival cars on the British track.
An accident in Druids Bend in the first lap of the first race left Yvan Muller out. It was his first retirement since 2007 and it jeopardised his chances in both races. Gabriele Tarquini and Rickard Rydell took over in the front positions finishing the race in fourth and fifth position, with Tiago Monteiro seventh and Jordi Gené further in the back due to an accident.
In the second race Monteiro and Rydell were fighting for the third position, waiting for the arrival of Tarquini and Muller’s recovery, who moved up from the last place to seventh in the last lap. Rydell co-operated with Tarquini, while Monteiro and Gené did the same with Muller in order to let them both score important points for the overall standings, showing again a productive teamwork.
Tom Boardman won the Independents’ Trophy in the second race ahead of Tom Coronel. In the first race, they both finished third and second respectively, showing once again the competitiveness of the SEAT León WTCC. This has been Boardman’s best result since his debut in the World Championship. The British driver, who won the Supercopa in Spain and Great Britain, showed the value of the Supercopa SEAT León as a driver school for the World Championship.
In the manufacturers’ standings SEAT has an advantage of 10 points over BMW and 64 over Chevrolet. In the drivers’ standings, Muller continues in the lead, but Gabriele Tarquini, second, has closed the gap and is only 5 points behind his teammate. Augusto Farfus is third, one point behind Tarquini.
The next round of the World Touring Car Championship will be staged on the German racetrack of Oschersleben on 5th and 6th September.
Standngs
1st race:
1. A.Menu (Chevrolet) 28.25.945
2. R.Huff (Chevrolet) + 1.501
3. A.Priaulx (BMW) + 1.240
4. G.Tarquini (SEAT) + 2.024
5. R.Rydell (SEAT) + 2.420
7. T.Monteiro (SEAT) + 6.300
13. J.Gené (SEAT) + 13.331
Abandono: Y.Muller (SEAT)
2nd race:
1. A.Farfus (BMW) 28.09.979
2. J.Muller (BMW) + 2.061
3. G.Tarquini (SEAT) + 7.030
4. R.Rydell (SEAT) + 7.398
5. A.Priaulx (BMW) + 7.749
7. YMuller (SEAT) + 16.651
8. T.Monteiro (SEAT) + 17.444
16. J.Gené (SEAT) + 23.053
World Touring Car Championship
Drivers:
1. Y.Muller, 82
2. G.Tarquini, 77
3. A.Farfus,76
4. R.Rydell, 55
5. R.Huff, 54
6. J.Muller, 53.
7. A.Priaulx, 48
8. T.Monteiro, 34
9. J.Gené, 32
10. S.Hernández, 29
Manufacturers:
1. SEAT, 211
2. BMW, 201
3. Chevrolet, 147
4. Lada, 59
- SEAT Sport
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