Yvan Muller delight after Porto win

Yvan Muller consolidated his lead at the top of the World Touring Car Championship standings with victory in race one of this weekend’s round in Porto.

The Frenchman held off the challenge of RML Chevrolet team-mate Tom Chilton to claim his fifth win of the season.

Muller then had to settle for seventh place in the second race, which was won by Bamboo Chevrolet driver James Nash.

Having qualified on pole, Muller led from start to finish in an eventful opening race which saw BMW’s Franz Engstler inexplicably run into the back of a pick-up truck which was on its way to recover Gabriele Tarquini’s stricken car.

There were various other retirements as well while the safety car was also deployed, but Muller managed to stay out of trouble to cross the line 0.343 seconds ahead of Chilton, with Michel Nykjaer (Nika Chevrolet) in third.

Muller admitted afterwards that the conditions had not made life easy for the drivers.

“It was a tough race, especially with the temperatures,” he said on www.fiawtcc.com.

“It was difficult not to make a mistake because it was something like 65 or 70 degrees inside the car.”

In race two, Nash also made the most of being on pole to claim victory.

The Briton found himself under pressure in the early stages but eventually pulled away to leave a number of cars battling it out for the other podium places.

It was Seat’s Rob Huff who eventually won that fight, with Nykjaer making his way up the grid to claim his second third-placed finish of the day.