Sébastien Loeb scored his second World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) victory of the season in race two in Slovakia, as Citroën again secured a clean-sweep of the podium positions, with José María López in second and Yvan Muller.
The three leading works’ Citroën drivers all got off to scintillating starts from the lower reaches of the top ten, with Loeb himself on the tail of early race leader Gabriele Tarquini by the second corner.
With the Citroën drivers being at the front so quickly, it was only a matter of time before they took the lead. The inevitable happened on lap three, when Loeb threw his car down the inside of Tarquini’s Honda into turn one.
Just one lap later López and Muller passed Tarquini for the remaining two podium positions in turn one and two respectively, although the order at the front wouldn’t change thereafter as Loeb pulled away from his two team-mates and Muller was unable to get by López.
Tarquini had to settle for fourth position, having dropped back from the leading Citroëns in the second half of the race.
Hugo Valente was again the top Yokohama Trophy and Chevrolet driver in fifth, with the Campos Racing driver having a relatively uneventful race.
Pole man Jaap van Lagen could only manage sixth, having got off to a poor start and lost five positions before the end of the first lap. The Dutchman was the only LADA driver to finish the race, with team-mates Rob Huff and Nicky Catsburg both retiring from the race with mechanical issues.
Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehdi Bennani was seventh, ahead of Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz and Honda’s Tiago Monteiro. The two Civic drivers made contact on lap eight when Monteiro locked up and hit Michelisz whilst battling for position, although both were able to continue.
ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel completed the top ten, despite late-race pressure from the Nika Racing Honda of newcomer Néstor Girolami, who narrowly avoided an accident with the slow-starting Citroën of Ma Qing Hua at the start.
Tom Chilton was running in tenth position with just three laps to go when the ROAL Motorsport driver made a mistake and beached his car in the gravel, forcing him out of the race.
Citroën’s Ma had another weekend to forget, with a poor start which saw the Chinese driver penalised for a jump start, even though it dropped him to 18th position from fourth on the grid. The Chinese driver retired from the race after serving his penalty.