Alfa Romeo got their bid to win the inaugural FIA World Touring Car Championship firmly back on track at Silverstone this afternoon, kicking off with a clean sweep of the top four positions in race one.

With the top-end of the grid being reversed as usual for race two, race one winner Gabriele Tarquini fought through to claim the last podium position, and help himself to sixteen points. The strong showing put behind the Alfa Romeo team, the last round at Magny-Cours where BMW dominated proceedings, and the mid-week decision by the Touring Car Council to lighten the front wheel drive runners certainly help Alfa Romeo and SEAT take the fight to the German marque.

With title leader Dirk Muller scoring only three points, reigning FIA ETCC Champion Andy Prilaux adding four to his tally, while Jorg Muller claimed just two, Tarquini has been able to vault his way right up the leaderboard and now stands just two points adrift of Dirk Muller. Ten points for Augusto Farfus and eight for James Thompson more them into fifth and sixth positions. In the manufacturers championship, Alfa Romeo with 75 points are just six behind BMW (81 points) while SEAT, bolstered by a 1-2 finish in the second race are in third place on 60 points, well ahead of Chevrolet on 16 points and Ford who have two points.

Gabriele TARQUINI

“We have done a really good job this weekend. Our performance in qualifying was great, meaning we had no problem in making it an all Alfa Romeo podium.
 

"For the second it was completely different. I had two BMWs behind be on the grid and in the first few laps, as usual, there was a lot of contact. The points may indicate that the championship is reopened but the BMWs were still competitive despite the 70 kg difference. SEAT are also close to us so it will be a real challenge.”

James THOMPSON

“I had two tough races today. My start on the first one was very poor and I left myself with too much to do. Second race was going reasonably well until my team-mate was involved in a battle with Terting and indirectly knocked me out onto the gravel track. I was hoping to build up my points tally after a disappointing Magny-Cours when the car wasn’t working well. Here the car was great and I wanted to capitalise on that but it didn’t happen.”

Fabrizio GIOVANARDI

“In the first race all of the Alfa Romeo drivers wanted to finish 1st. It was a clean fight and I was quite pleased with 3rd. In the second race I got a great start but unfortunately I made a mistake while trying to overtake Plato and spun off.”