» WTCC Valencia: Monteiro makes it a SEAT clean-sweep in Race 2

A poor start by Race 2 polesitter Alain Menu was all the invitation that Tiago Monteiro needed to lead SEAT to a clean sweep of race World Touring Car Championship victories on home soil at Valencia.

The former F1 driver make a great getaway from the second row to leapfrog front-row starters Menu and Fredy Barth as he swept to the outside on the run to the left-hander at Turn 1, while a fast-starting Andy Priaulx tried the inside line.

While the Portuguese driver would never be headed on his quest for a second race win of the season, it was all action behind as Priaulx and Menu conspired to collide at Turn 3.

Priaulx lunged for the inside line into the corner only to find Menu assuming a normal racing line to take the corner’s apex with the BMW completely in the way. The contact pitched Menu into a quick spin, while Priaulx was also held up trying to find a way through – all this promoted Muller to third behind Barth.

Muller’s Christmases seemed to come at once when he was promoted to second place when Barth slide wide and into retirement with a right-rear puncture.

However, Muller’s key championship rivals – Gabriele Tarquini and Priaulx – finished right behind him to limit the points damage.

Priaulx’s collision with Menu had dropped him behind Tarquini and the sister SEAT of Jordi Gené, leaving the Guernseyman with no alternative but to drive another hard-charging race to recover the lost ground.

His pass on Gené was certainly forceful, and coupled with the collision with Menu, he had a visit with the Stewards who declared both incidents as normal racing.

Behind the five drivers, Robert Huff had a quiet drive to sixth place, with Michel Nykjær heading home the recovering Augusto Farfus, who tore through the field to finish eighth after starting at the rear of the field due to his poor finish in Race 1.

SEAT’s Tom Coronel and the Independent runner Kristian Poulsen completed the top-ten, with the Danish BMW driver having an excellent weekend with back-to-back trophy wins at Valencia.

WTCC Valencia Race 2 Final Classification (13 laps):

	Driver	Team	Result
1.	Tiago Monteiro	SR Sport SEAT León TDI	23:29.770
2.	Yvan Muller	RML Chevrolet Cruze LT	+ 0.719
3.	Gabriele Tarquini	SR Sport SEAT León TDI	+ 3.455
4.	Andy Priaulx	RBM Team BMW 320si	+ 3.785
5.	Jordi Gené	SR Sport SEAT León TDI	+ 4.183
6.	Robert Huff	RML Chevrolet Cruze LT	+ 4.982
7.	Michel Nykjær	SUNRED SEAT León TDI	+ 7.248
8.	Augusto Farfus	RBM Team BMW 320si	+ 7.825
9.	Tom Coronel	SR Sport SEAT León TDI	+ 9.024
10.	Kristian Poulsen (I)	Poulsen Motorsport BMW 320si	+ 10.125
11.	Alain Menu	RML Chevrolet Cruze LT	+ 13.356
12.	Norbert Michelisz	Zengö-Dension SEAT León TDI	+ 15.226
13.	Marc Carol (I)	SR Sport SEAT León TFSI	+ 15.789
14.	Franz Engstler (I)	Team Engstler BMW 320si	+ 15.954
15.	Sergio Hernández (I)	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320si	+ 18.716
16.	Mehdi Bennani (I)	Wiechers Sport BMW 320si	+ 27.455
17.	Darryl O’Young (I)	Bamboo Chevrolet Lacetti	+ 29.011
18.	Yukinori Taniguchi (I)	Bamboo Chevrolet Lacetti	+ 32.972
19.	Andrei Romanov (I)	Team Engstler BMW 320si	+ 33.636
	Not Classified
DNF	Fredy Barth	SUNRED SEAT León TDI	7 laps
DNS	Stefan D’Aste (I)	Scuderia Proteam BMW 320si