Yvan Muller took victory in the second World Touring Car Championship race on the Nurburgring Nordschleife, just ahead of a charging Jose Maria Lopez in an exciting finish.
From fifth on the grid, Muller moved up to second in the early corners and then took the lead away from pole-sitter Tiago Monteiro before the end of the first of three laps.
Muller came under pressure from Monteiro again on the final lap, but used the straight-line speed of his Citroen to pull away from the Honda on the long Dottinger Hohe straight for the final time.
He crossed the line just 0.173 seconds ahead of team-mate Lopez however, after the Argentinian blasted past both Gabriele Tarquini and then Monteiro down the straight, with the slipstream effect putting him right onto Muller’s tail as they reached the finish line on the GP pit straight.
Lopez had started the final lap down in sixth, but followed factory-entered team-mate Ma Qing Hua past the privately-run Mehdi Bennani at Turn 1 and was then gifted fourth when Ma slid off track on the Nordschleife. Lopez was fortunate not to collect the Chinese driver as he glanced off the barrier and slewed back across the track in front of him.
Sebastien Loeb would pass his own team’s driver Bennani for fifth before the end. Rob Huff and the returning Jaap van Lagen took points for Lada in seventh and ninth respectively, with Tom Coronel dropping from second on the grid to finish eighth and John Filippi taking tenth ahead of Sabine Schmitz.
