Chevrolet enjoy strong result at Brands Hatch

Chevrolet have maintained their strong record at Brands Hatch, winning a race on every appearance – though this time it was Yvan Muller who took that victory and extends his lead.

With a 1-2 in the first race, Yvan Muller & Rob Huff took good number of points away from the weekend, with Muller extending his championship lead over former team mate and reigning champion Gabriele Tarquini by eight points.

“It’s a very positive weekend, the entire team has done a great job, we had an excellent car and we can go away from Brands with a great result,” said Yvan Muller.

In Race Two, Yvan finished fifth ahead of team mate Rob Huff, as Alain Menu retired after a clash with Augusto Farfus at the Druids hairpin.

“I had a scary moment towards the end,” recalls Muller

“Just after the restart, I said to myself ‘let’s try to catch Coronel and gain one position’, but I must have pushed a little bit too hard, going wide and off-track in a corner.”

Rob Huff was also happy with his performance

“I am very pleased with the result, it’s another good day for the team and we did what we needed to do to defend the leadership in both championships…I now look very much forward to Brno, a circuit which I like a lot and where we should do well again.”

Menu finished seventh initially in race one, but was penalised as the stewards perceived he’d deliberately fallen back to grab a good grid slot for race two, which would have put him in the best position to continue his record of claiming a win at each WTCC visit at Brands Hatch, but it wasn’t to be.

On the third lap, Menu and Farfus made contact, as Alain tried to follow Andy Priaulx through as the British driver overtook his team mate.

“Priaulx and I took the inside at Druids to pass Farfus, but he closed the door abruptly and contact was unavoidable,” explained Menu.

“Something got bent in my steering and I had to stop in the pits for repairs. Eventually, I could take the track again, but my race was of course over”.

Yvan Muller now leads the championship with 199 points from Gabriele Tarquini with 176. Andy Priaulx lies third, with Rob Huff in fourth on 130.

The next round is at Brno, where last years victors were Alex Zanardi and Sergio Hernández, then racing for ROAL Motorsport. The circuit has favoured BMW’s in the past with SEAT and Chevrolet only winning one race each on the circuit in the championship’s history.