» WTCC: López victorious on home soil

José María López has once again triumphed on home soil at the Autódromo Termas de Río Hondo, although this time the Argentine was made to work hard to cross the finish line first in Sunday’s main race.

The result ended a five-race winless streak for the Citröen driver – the longest drought of his record-breaking World Touring Car Championship. Tellingly, it was his fifth race win on home soil in eight starts, and his sixth victory out of the eight main race legs held to-date in 2016.

Having climbed from last to fifth in the day’s earlier race won by fellow Citröen runner Tom Chilton, López looked set for a lights-to-flag demonstration run after claiming pole position for the day’s closing 14-lap affair.

Yet it was Honda’s Norbert Michelisz who led early on thanks to the Hungarian driver making a better start off the front row. López gave chase and ran side-by-side with Michelisz through the opening sequence of corners before the Honda driver was able to shut the door and assume the lead down the long back straight.

2016 FIA WTCC Race of Argentina Race 2 start

Michelisz got the jump on pole-sitter López and held the lead for the first six laps of the race.

López had a wobble on approach to the straight and fell back into the clutches of teammate Yvan Muller, leaving Michelisz to ease clear from the squabbling Citröen drivers.

His joy would be short-lived. By the end of the first lap, López and Muller were hot on his heels and threatening to spoil the party. Michelisz successfully defended under braking at the end of the back straight for the next six laps, all but parking his Honda on the apex to back López into Muller and the rest of the chasing pack of cars.

Michelisz’s defense was getting more desperate his front tyres started to fade, and on Lap 7 he had López and Muller on either side of him on the approach to Turn 9. López snuck through into the lead, while Muller tried to capitalise at the same time that Michelisz was trying to keep the French veteran at bay. Both ran off-line and slid straight into the gravel at Turn 11, removing themselves from an exciting three-way scrap for the lead.

That promoted ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel into second place ahead of the Hondas of Rob Huff and Tiago Monteiro; Muller rejoined in fifth while Michelisz slipped back to eighth between the privateer Sébastien Loeb Racing Citröens of Mehdi Bennani and Tom Chilton.

Local driver Esteban Guerrieri had climed to sixth place in his Campos Racing Chevrolet, despite a clutch problem that gave him a sluggish start from fifth on the grid. His teammate John Filippi ran tenth.

With the battle for the lead now over, the top ten ran in that order for the remainder of the race, with López easing off in the closing stages to win with a two-second margin over Coronel.

Victory for López helped him eke out 13 points over Monteiro in their battle for the Drivers’ Championship title, with his lead over the Portuguese driver a near-insurmountable 117 points.

2016 FIA WTCC Race of Argentina – Race 2 Final Classification (14 laps)
	Driver	Team / Entry	Laps	Result
1.	José María López	Citroën Racing WTCC C-Elysée	14	24:52.898
2.	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze	14	+ 2.032
3.	Rob Huff	Honda Racing Team JAS Civic WTCC	14	+ 2.583
4.	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS Civic WTCC	14	+ 3.956
5.	Yvan Muller	Citroën Racing WTCC C-Elysée	14	+ 4.305
6.	Esteban Guerrieri	Campos Racing Chevrolet RML Cruze	14	+ 8.740
7.	Mehdi Bennani	Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën C-Elysée	14	+ 9.126
8.	Norbert Michelisz	Honda Racing Team JAS Civic WTCC	14	+ 11.649
9.	Tom Chilton	Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën C-Elysée	14	+ 12.659
10.	John Filippi	Campos Racing Chevrolet RML Cruze	14	+ 14.693
11.	James Thompson	Münnich Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze	14	+ 18.103
12.	Nick Catsburg	LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta WTCC	14	+ 18.523
13.	Gabriele Tarquini	LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta WTCC	14	+ 20.205
14.	Thed Björk	Polestar Cyan Racing Volvo S60 TC1	14	+ 20.827
15.	Grégoire Demoustier	Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën C-Elysée	14	+ 24.046
16.	Robert Dahlgren	Polestar Cyan Racing Volvo S60 TC1	14	+ 24.931
17.	Dániel Nagy	Zengõ Motorsport Honda Civic WTCC	14	+ 37.987
	Not Classified
DNF.	Hugo Valente	LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta WTCC	8	Power Loss