Yvan Muller has taken a lights-to-flag victory in the first World Touring Car Championship race at Donington Park, beating Chevrolet team-mates Rob Huff and Alain Menu to the win. Muller led away from pole position and, despiteslight contact at the first corner, held on to take his third win of the season.
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Alain Menu had briefly been in second on the opening lap, having passed Huff into the first corner, although Huff was back in front before the end of the lap. The two made contact several times during the race but both held on to complete a Chevrolet clean-sweep of the podium for the fourth time in 2011.
Tom Coronel came through the field to finish in fourth – a position he was in by lap four after an excellent start to the race. Fifth was Gabriele Tarquini – although the Italian was challenging for third on the opening lap he was unable to maintain a podium challenge.
Franz Engstler finished in sixth and as the top Yokoham Trophy driver. The German was able to avoid several incidents around him that benefitted his race position.
Michel Nykjaer finished in seventh after a close battle with Kristian Poulsen and Robert Dahlgren, who made contact on lap 6. As Dahlgren attempted to pass Poulsen he rode up on to the back of the BMW heading down the back straight, costing him positions and allowing Turkington through. Dahlren would recover to finish in eighth, wtih Poulsen in ninth.
Turkington himself had been on a recovery drive – whilst battling for fourth on the opening lap he was sent across the grass on the inside of the old hairpin to rejoin in 10th. Despite battling inside the points for much of the race the 2009 BTCC champion finished in tenth.
Darryl O’Young had a difficult race – having started from sixth the bamboo engineering driver could only manage 11th. At the rolling start O’Young was seen to be easily swamped by other drivers and by the end of the opening lap he was down in 12th.
The race saw two drivers failing to reach the finish – one of them being Norbert Michelisz, who suffered a spin into the hairpin on lap 6, went out with steering problems. Tiago Monteiro managed just one lap before retiring due to broken suspension. He would rejoin the race briefly a few laps later to check that the damage was fixed for the second race.