After the third meeting of the 2007 FIA World Touring Car Championship in Valencia, Spain, last Sunday the series appears to be as unpredictable as it ever is. Four different manufacturers have already scored victories in the first six races of the season, and six of their drivers are at the top of the championship standings, all covered by only 11 points.

James Thompson of the N.Technology Alfa Romeo team was the star of the Spanish weekend. The Briton dominated the field with his Alfa 156, claiming pole position, two victories and the fastest lap in the first race. In doing so he became only the second driver to win twice during the same weekend in WTCC history since Jörg Müller's triumph at Magny-Cours in 2005.

The last double victory for the Alfa Romeo team dates back to the same year, when Gabriele Tarquini and Fabrizio Giovanardi shared wins in Istanbul. “You can't ask better than a pole and two wins, I'm so happy," said Thompson after Sunday's two races. "I think I've only ever won two races in one day a couple of times before but never at this level. You can't do it without the car underneath you and for that I thank the team. All weekend we had worked on being the fastest coming into the first corner and having that made overtaking relatively easy. It was tough with Yvan in race one but in race two Jörg (Müller) and Andy (Priaulx) were very fair. The championship has just started for me.”

The Alfa 156 is in the final days of a fabulous racing career, and when it retired it will rightly take its place amongst the pantheon of highly successful touring car racers that have been bred to win by the Italian carmaker over the decades. Last year the Alfa 156 continued defied the odds of age, propelling Augusto Farfus into the final round of the WTCC at Macau in the lead of the championship, while in Valencia last weekend it proved that, coupled with the ability of the N.Technology outfit, it is still a race winner.
 

Thompson - an experienced touring car star - has now pushed himself into the drivers' championship battle with his double win and another exciting title chase is on the cards, although he will be hit for the first time this year with a ballast load at the next race.

The WTCC will resume in a week and a half's time at Pau, on June 3rd for rounds 7 and 8. On the famous French street circuit that will be hosting an FIA World Touring Car Championship event for the first time, title contenders Augusto Farfus and Gabriele Tarquini will both start with an important handicap. The two drivers were given a 10 position drop on the starting grid for the first race, as the Stewards judged them responsible for causing two collisions in Valencia's Race 1.

In the championship standings after six point scoring races Thompson has rocketed from a zero points haul after the first four rounds to climb into sixth place with 20 points. Jörg Müller with one win ties for the championship lead on 31 points with Andy Priaulx, who has no wins yet to his credit but has finished in the points in all the races so far and on the podium three times. Third is Farfus on 28th points; the Brazilian was leading the title chase going into the Valencia double-header but failed to collect any points from either race. Fourth is Nicola Larini (25 points) while fifth, and just one point ahead of Thompson, is SEAT's Tarquini who also failed to score any points in Spain. In the manufacturers' championship BMW have 81 points followed by SEAT (62), Chevrolet (50) and Alfa Romeo (34).