Norbert Michelisz

José María López scored his third Main Race victory of the FIA World Touring Car Championship season in another thrilling encounter in the rain at the FIA WTCC Race of Hungary.

Citroën driver López led from start to finish but didn’t have it easy, having to defend from Rob Huff and Yvan Muller. Muller made a fantastic start from seventh on the grid to climb to third, and passed Huff for second place at Turn 5 just before the safety car was required after Grégoire Demoustier went straight on at speed into the barriers at Turn 1 at the start of lap three, but escaped unharmed.

After the restart, López was unable to pull away in the difficult conditions and had both Muller and Huff for very close company heading onto lap 10 of 17. Huff repassed Muller at Turn 2, but was handed a drive-through penalty for making contact from behind under braking.

This released Muller to chase after López once more and the Frenchman set the fastest lap with two tours of the Hungaroring remaining, but the defending champion responded immediately with a best lap of his own and claimed victory by 2.8 seconds.

Tiago Monteiro finished third for Honda after seeing off a mid-race challenge from Thed Björk, who came close to scoring the first podium for the Volvo S60 Polestar. Tom Chilton followed up his second place in the Opening Race with fifth overall and a first WTCC Trophy win of the season.

Starting the race from the back after the turbo failure that kept him out of the Opening Race, Norbert Michelisz delivered a hero’s drive for the home crowd and was challenging Chilton for fifth when his left-rear suspension appeared to break with a lap to go, but he still managed to bring the car home in 10th.

Huff therefore took sixth ahead of Tom Coronel, who fell backwards on the first lap after his magnificent second place in qualifying. Eighth was Opening Race winner Mehdi Bennani, who went from ninth to fourth on the first lap but was given a drive-through penalty for knocking Monteiro wide at Turn 5, ending his streak of WTCC Trophy wins.

Source: FIA WTCC

Results of the Main Race: