Alfa Romeo's hopes of winning the inaugural FIA World Touring Car Championship title encountered a major setback at Oschersleben today. The Italian team's main title contender Fabrizio Giovanardi failed to add to his pointts tally - as did Gabriele Tarquini - and the former is now 12 points adrift of Dirk Muller, with reigning FIA ETCC Champion Andy Prilaux having also squeezed him out of second place. In the race for the manufacturers' cup, Alfa Romeo (164 points) are now 29 points adrift of their arch-rivals BMW (193 points), with six races left to run.

RACE 1

Andy Priaulx claimed his first win of the season. At the start the Briton overtook Augusto Farfus, which left only James Thompson’s Alfa Romeo ahead of him. Unusually, Thompson had incurred a drive through penalty before the start of the race because his car was still on air-jacks when the three minute board was shown. It was in lap six that Thompson pulled into the pits and handed the lead to the eventual race winner.

Rickard Rydell crossed the line 2nd after holding off the BMW Müller duo for seven laps. Overall, it was a great race for SEAT. Terting claimed 5th, Ortelli finished an impressive 6th on his FIA WTCC debut and Gené took 7th position in the new León. Alfa Romeo certainly did not have the same fortune as none of their drivers scored points in the drivers’ championship. Their best result came from Farfus who took 9th. Giovanardi was hit by Cirò in lap 1, which caused the Alfa Romeo to spin and re-join last. Despite visiting the pits and continuing for a while, he did not finish the race. Tarquini went wide at a corner on lap 5 and rejoined 12th. After being overtaken by Funke on lap 12, he eventually finished 13th.
 
Jörg Müller was the final podium occupier. He had a fantastic start as his BMW leapt from 11th to 5th coming into the first corner. In the latter part of the race Jörg had 2nd place in his sights but couldn’t find an opportunity to pass Rydell. Dirk Müller finished behind his team-mate in 4th.

RACE 2

Alessandro Zanardi claimed a spectacular win in the FIA WTCC – the first for him and his BMW Team Italy-Spain. He started from pole due to the reverse grid and he drove a solid race to ensure he was the victor. It was in fact a BMW 1-2-3 as Jörg Müller and Andy Priaulx made their second podium appearance of the day.
 

The set of three were very close and Jörg was sitting 2nd on the last lap when he made a nail-biting challenge on Zanardi but went wide and rejoined 3rd. This promoted Priaulx which now means he is just one point behind Dirk Müller in the driver’s championship.

At the start Ortelli was hit by fellow SEAT driver Terting and both went off the track. The former continued to finish 15th while the latter pitted and did not re-join. In an attempt to avoid this incident, De Micheli and Hennerici crashed and re-joined towards the back of the field. On lap 2 Giovanardi’s misfortune continued as he collided with Rosenblad and crashed into the barriers.

The race was extremely tight over the next few laps with the top 11 drivers crossing the line within 4 seconds. Among the pack were Rydell and Tarquini who were battling for 7th place. On lap 5 contact was made and the Alfa Romeo was forced wide losing five positions in the process and eventually finishing 14th. The SEAT Sport man managed to hold on to 7th while his team-mate Gené had a brilliant 4th place finish in the new León after being third for ten laps. A fight for the final point position was being contested by García and Menu with the Chevrolet eventually crossing the line ahead of the BMW. All the Chevrolet drivers had better results than in Race 1 as Larini and Huff achieved 11th and 12th.