Rob Huff has won the first World Touring Car Championship race in the Czech Republic, beating poleman Yvan Muller through the first three corners. By turn 3 Huff was leading and able to control the race to take his fifth win of the year. Muller was less than a second behind at the chequered flag, whilst Alain Menu made it a perfect race for the works Chevrolet team and completed the podium.
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Huff went around the outside of Muller through turn one after the rolling start and held his position to give himself the inside line for turn three. From thereon in it was simply a case of controlling the race as Huff sought yet another win in his impressive season.
Menu made it an all-Chevrolet podium, although his start was not as strong as those of his team-mates. Dropping to fifth, he passed Poulsen on lap 3 with an easy move at turn five. He then took his time applying pressure to Tom Coronel in front before passing the Dutchman into turn one on lap 7 for third. Coronel kept pace with Menu but was unable to get back past and finished in fourth.
Poulsen eventually finished in fifth although the Dane had been running in fourth on the opening lap having got a better start than Menu.
Dahlgren, who finished in sixth, survived a brief off-track excursion on the opening lap. Having applied plentiful amounts of pressure to Darryl O’Young in front he eventually found his way past on lap 5.
O’Young finished in seventh after battling with Dahlgren, although he was immediately under pressure from Nykjaer after Dahlgren squeezed past. The bamboo engineering driver held on though to score yet another strong points finish, atlhough he was forced to drive an extremely defensive race in the closing laps and bunched up several drivers behind.
Despite starting from the very back, Hungarian driver Michelisz was up to 14th on the opening lap. Just a couple of laps later he was into 11th and by the end of the race had worked himself into a very creditable 8th position and set the fourth fastest lap of the race in the process. Michelisz seized the opportunity to pass Javier Villa Garcia for ninth on lap 7 and shortly after passed Nykjaer for eighth.
Nykjaer looked set to finish in ninth but as a result of the bunching caused by O’Young ahead he came under heavy pressure from Villa Garcia, who passed him with just two corners to go on the final lap. Villa Garcia finished in ninth, with Nykjaer in tenth.
Moroccan driver Mehdi Bennani was 11th having fought a hard battle with German driver Franz Engstler for most of the race. Engstler looked set to finish in 12th until the last lap when, as a result of the group of cars bunching in fron,t he tried to re-pass Bennani and spun down to 16th in the process.
Tarquini had a troubled race after making contact with Nykjaer at the start. He pulled into the pits after just one lap and was out of the race. Tarquini did later complete some exploration laps as his SR-Sport team sought to fix and check the problem would not be present for the second race.
Fredy Barth failed to finish the race due to engine troubles.