» WTCC: Honda dominates Main Race in Morocco

Mirroring his efforts in Saturday’s qualifying session, Rob Huff has led a Honda 1-2-3 in Sunday’s main World Touring Car Championship race on the streets of Marrakech, beating home teammates Norbert Michelisz and Tiago Monteiro.

The earlier overcast conditions that threatened Race 1 unleashed before the start of the main race, with the field starting on wet Yokohama tyres.

Despite the low-grip conditions, Huff led the field away at the start with Michelisz and Monteiro in tow, although Monteiro found himself overtaken by Citroën’s José María López on the opening lap.

Race 1 winner Tom Coronel gained three placed to run in fifth place, but he fell to ninth in a multi-car incident at the hairpin on the opening lap. That promoted the Citroën of Yvan Muller to fifth ahead of LADA’s Hugo Valente and the fast-starting Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën of Mehdi Bennani.

Coronel then found himself under attack from the sister Chevrolet of Münnich Motorsport stand-in James Thompson. The pair waged an entertaining scrap, while up ahead Gabriele Tarquini’s LADA moved into seventh by displacing Bennani.

Further ahead, López found himself under increasing pressure from Monteiro, and succumbed to the Portuguese driver’s efforts to snatch third with a rare mistake when he ran wide at the hairpin. That was all the invitation Monteiro needed to slot into third and start chasing down Michelisz.

Tarquini also found the slippery conditions to his liking and made quick in-roads on his teammate Valente. The Frenchman was soon ordered over the pit-to-car radio to let Tarquini by, but unwisely chose to argue the point in his apparent efforts at teamwork, leading to the two drivers making contact at the exit of Turn 1 on Lap 7. Fortunately there was no major damage, but it was yet another incident between the pair, whose fractured relationship has shown little sight of improving.

Monteiro was soon on the back of second-placed Michelisz, but couldn’t capitalise on a minor error by the Hungarian at Turn 5. Up at the front, Huff smoothly controlled proceedings to lead a Honda 1-2-3 ahead of fourth-placed López – the quartet ran line-astern for the remainder of the race. It was Huff’s first non-reverse grid win since his victory at the Salzburgring in 2012.

Muller finished fifth for Citroën ahead of the LADA pair of Tarquini and Valente. Mehdi Bennani won the Independents’ trophy with eighth outright, while Thompson’s pressure on ninth-placed Coronel eventually paid off when the Dutchman made an error at Turn 5 and slid wide, allowing the Englishman and his compatriot Tom Chilton through to complete the top-ten. Chilton would later be disqualified from his tenth place finish for running tyres that had not been registered for use with the scrutineers.

Finishing behind Monteiro has meant that López’s 17-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship standings over the Portuguese driver was trimmed by just three points.

The field now heads to the most anticipated round of the season at the Nürburgring Nordschleife on May 28, where it will play a support billing to the annual 24 Hour classic.

2016 FIA WTCC Race of Morocco – Race 2 Final Classification (22 laps)
	Driver	Team / Entry	Laps	Result
1.	Rob Huff	Honda Racing Team JAS Civic WTCC	22	34:31.337
2.	Norbert Michelisz	Honda Racing Team JAS Civic WTCC	22	+ 0.611
3.	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS Civic WTCC	22	+ 1.251
4.	José María López	Citroën Racing WTCC C-Elysée	22	+ 2.710
5.	Yvan Muller	Citroën Racing WTCC C-Elysée	22	+ 9.916
6.	Gabriele Tarquini	LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta WTCC	22	+ 10.517
7.	Hugo Valente	LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta WTCC	22	+ 32.503
8.	Mehdi Bennani	Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën C-Elysée	22	+ 36.143
9.	James Thompson	Münnich Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze	22	+ 37.222
10.	Nick Catsburg	LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta WTCC	22	+ 46.695
11.	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze	22	+ 1:04.823
12.	John Filippi	Campos Racing Chevrolet RML Cruze	22	+ 1:07.716
13.	Ferenc Ficza	Zengõ Motorsport Honda Civic WTCC	22	+ 1:08.035
14.	Thed Björk	Polestar Cyan Racing Volvo S60 TC1	21	+ 1 lap
15.	Fredrik Ekblom	Polestar Cyan Racing Volvo S60 TC1	21	+ 1 lap
	Not Classified
DNF.	Grégoire Demoustier	Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën C-Elysée	5	Mechanical
DQ.	Tom Chilton^	Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën C-Elysée		Tyres

^ Post-Race Penalties:

Tom Chilton (originally classified in 10th place) was found to have competed the race on unregistered tyres and disqualified from the final classification.

Image via FIA WTCC