Alain Menu - Photo Credit: WTCC Media
Alain Menu maintained Chevrolet's unbeaten start to the 2012 World Touring Car Championship season with victory in Race 2 at Valencia, leading home four BMWs in an incident-packed race.
Stefano D'Aste began the race from pole and held his own out front for several laps. Front row starter Menu lost out to Franz Engstler off the line, but took the place back later on the opening lap.
It took a while for Menu to catch D'Aste, but got past him on lap six but only after making contact. He sportingly handed the lead back to the Wiechers-Sport driver before the next corner. Menu did manage to take the lead with a clean move at Turn 2 on the following lap.
On lap nine the leaders found oil on the track, Menu skidding off through the gravel and D'Aste and Engstler following him. Tom Coronel capitalised to move ahead of Engstler and D'Aste into second place, while Menu survived with his lead intact.
Coronel began catching Menu in the closing stages and the pair made contact on a straight as Coronel tried to pull alongside. This sent Menu out of control and onto the grass, but once again he survived with his lead intact as Coronel backed out of the throttle.
Menu held on to win ahead of Coronel and D'Aste, with Norbert Michelisz and Engstler close behind.
Rob Huff started sixth and finished there, while Race 1 winner Yvan Muller had made up early ground to run seventh. He too would get caught out on the oil though, dropping a place to eighth behind Pepe Oriola. Gabriele Tarquini had a quiet run to ninth, with Mehdi Bennani in tenth.
James Nash was having a good race in 11th for Team Aon until being forced to retire. Alex MacDowall and Tom Chilton finished 14th and 15th after being involved in a good multi-car midfield battle. Tom Boardman retired on the opening lap after making contact with another car.
| Pos | Class | Driver | Team | Car | Time/Gap |
| 1 | Alain Menu | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 13 laps in 23:03.207 | |
| 2 | Tom Coronel | ROAL | BMW 320 TC | 0.861 | |
| 3 | Y | Stefano D’Aste | Wiechers | BMW 320 TC | 1.306 |
| 4 | Y | Norbert Michelisz | Zengo | BMW 320 TC | 1.629 |
| 5 | Y | Franz Engstler | Engstler | BMW 320 TC | 1.901 |
| 6 | Robert Huff | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 3.007 | |
| 7 | Y | Pepe Oriola | Tuenti | SEAT Leon WTCC | 5.704 |
| 8 | Yvan Muller | Chevrolet | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 6.368 | |
| 9 | Gabriele Tarquini | Lukoil | SEAT Leon WTCC | 15.044 | |
| 10 | Y | Mehdi Bennani | Proteam | BMW 320 TC | 15.306 |
| 11 | Y | Isaac Tutumlu | Proteam | BMW 320 TC | 19.838 |
| 12 | Y | Aleksei Dudukalo | Lukoil | SEAT Leon WTCC | 21.166 |
| 13 | Tiago Monteiro | Tuenti | SR Leon 1.6T | 21.865 | |
| 14 | Y | Alex MacDowall | Bamboo | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 23.167 |
| 15 | Tom Chilton | Aon | Ford Focus S2000 TC | 25.024 | |
| 16 | Y | Pasquale Di Sabatino | Bamboo | Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T | 27.071 |
| 17 | Y | Andrea Barlesi | Sunred | SR Leon 1.6T | 50.229 |
| 18 | Y | Fernando Monje | Sunred | SR Leon 1.6T | 1:04.377 |
| 19 | Y | Charles Ng | Engstler | BMW 320 TC | 3 laps |
| Not Classified | |||||
| James Nash | Aon | Ford Focus S2000 TC | 8 laps | ||
| Y | Darryl O’Young | Special Tuning | SEAT Leon WTCC | 4 laps | |
| Y | Alberto Cerqui | ROAL | BMW 320 TC | 1 laps | |
| Y | Tom Boardman | Special Tuning | SEAT Leon TDi | 0 laps | |
| Y | Gabor Weber | Zengo | BMW 320 TC | 0 laps |
