WTCC

Local Star Lopez Secures Victory In First WTCC Weekend

1 Mins read
Jose Maria Lopez - Photo Credit: FIA WTCC
Jose Maria Lopez - Photo Credit: FIA WTCC

Jose Maria Lopez secured a popular home victory on his first weekend in the World Touring Car Championship with a lights-to-flag win in race two at Termas de Rio Hondo.

Starting from the reverse grid pole position in his Wiechers-Sport BMW, Lopez got a good start to build up an early lead.

After a while, Tiago Monteiro and Yvan Muller began to chase him down, but their challenge was ended when Muller ran into the back of Monteiro under braking. Monteiro went off, and Muller was handed a drive-through penalty.

That allowed Lopez to bring the car home for a three second win.

Gabriele Tarquini finished in second place, narrowly ahead of Pepe Oriola, who followed up his second place in race one with a result nearly as good in race two.

Michel Nykjaer was close behind in fourth place in his Chevrolet, while Norbert Michelisz held off fellow Honda driver Monteiro for fifth. James Nash came home in seventh ahead of Hugo Valente, although only after the Frenchman had biffed off Darryl O’Young. Tom Coronel and Stefano D’Aste completed the top ten, having been unable to match the pace of fellow BMW driver Lopez throughout the weekend.

1882 posts

About author
Peter joined the TCF team in September 2010 and covers GP2 and GP3 along with WTCC and Formula Two. You can find him on twitter at @PeteAllen_
Articles
Related posts
TCR EuropeTCR International SeriesTCR UKWTCC

TCR Series Roundup - 24th March 2019

6 Mins read
The Checkered Flag looks back at the recent news and results from the various TCR Series competing around the world that has been released over the past seven days
TCR International SeriesWTCCWTCR

WTCC becomes WTCR in TCR regulations adoption

1 Mins read
The World Touring Car Championship will become the World Touring Car Cup in 2018 as the series adopts the succesful TCR concept…
TCR International SeriesWTCC

TCR and WTCC in rumoured merge for 2018

1 Mins read
A merge is expected between the TCR International Series and the WTCC ahead of the 2018 season, as the WTCC seeks to save its championship.