The FIA European Touring Car Championship is heading to Imola for the 15th and 16th rounds of the season, with Alfa Romeo eager to remedy a difficult situation that sees Gabriele Tarquini and Fabrizio Giovanardi – winners of the two previous championships – desperately chasing three BMW drivers in the run for the European title.

BMW Team Deutschland’s Dirk and Jörg Müller, and BMW Team Great Britain’s Andy Priaulx have dominated the most recent chunk of the season, claiming a total of nine race wins out of ten.

This has enabled the German Manufacturer to overtake Alfa Romeo in the total number of race wins (35 to 34) since the FIA ETCC was revived in 2001.

The three drivers are also currently holding onto the first three places of the Drivers’ Championship, with Dirk in the lead (86 points), ahead of Jörg (83) and Priaulx (81).

With 60 points to be awarded, Tarquini is 20 points behind the leader – a wide gap, although still possible to be filled – while Giovanardi, with a 40-point gap, is virtually out of contest.

Home advantage and the weight handicaps (40 kg for the Müllers, 20 kg for Priaulx) should help Tarquini to close in on the BMW men; although for this event the AutoDelta team can’t count on James Thompson, because of a clash with the British Championship.

Besides the title fight, the two races in Imola will offer other themes of interest. SEAT Sport is still pursuing its first race win in the Championship, and the ups and downs of the Italian racetrack appear to suit well the Toledo Cupra cars.

BMW Team Italy-Spain’s Alessandro Zanardi has showed substantial progress in the latest rounds, closing in to the front-runners’ pace.

Zanardi lives in Bologna, only 30km from Imola, and this will give him additional motivations for shining before his local supporters.

Only once in the past has the FIA ETCC visited Imola. It happened in 1987, when Vinnie Vogt and Altfrid Heger won the 500km race in a Linder BMW M3.

During the intervening seasons, the circuit was a regular venue for the Italian Touring Car Championship, and in 2000 hosted the 11th and 12th rounds of the European Super Touring Cup (that became FIA ETCC the year after) both won by Roberto Colciago’s Audi A4 Quattro.