Jörg Müller claimed his second victory of the season after promoting himself two positions off the line and taking the lead into the first corner.

He then drove solidly to finish ahead of Alessandro Zanardi for BMW and Yvan Muller for SEAT.

Pole man Gabriele Tarquini didn't survive the first lap after contact was made with Andy Priaulx entering a corner, sending the Italian wide and into the gravel where he could not resume.

Investigations are ongoing regarding the accident.

Augusto Farfus too went off on the first lap. At the start his Alfa Romeo 156 and Duncan Huisman's BMW 320si made contact to avoid Rickard Rydell's stalled SEAT.

Drama in the first lap continued when Priaulx was overtaken by Yvan Muller and Jordi Gené for 3rd and 4th.

The battle between Gené and Priaulx continued throughout the race creating some superb entertainment. The SEAT man defended to the end though and crossed the line 4th and 0.448 seconds ahead of the reigning champion.



Another fight for positions was being contested slightly further down the field. In the opening lap Alain Menu overtook Tom Coronel for 6th.

The latter appeared to be closing the gap until lap 4 when Menu edged away. Persistence was a virtue for Coronel however as he eventually re-gained 6th position on the last lap, also winning the independent race.

Menu passed the chequered flag 7th with his Chevrolet team-mate Robert Huff in the position behind. Huff impressively worked his way through the pack after starting 24th on the grid. The reward for his efforts: beginning from pole in Race 2.

Just missing out on the points was Dirk Müller. On laps 6 and 7 he and independent driver Luca Rangoni from Proteam Motorsport jostled for 8th position.

It was top class racing but neither of them secured the position as Rangoni made a mistake and strayed off into the gravel and Dirk was soon overtaken by Huff.