By alley - Oct 5, 2014, 5:00 AM ET

WTCC: Chilton takes first victory of 2014 in Beijing race 1

ROAL Motorsport's Tom Chilton proved that his shock World Touring Car Championship pole at Beijing Goldenport was no fluke by converting his it into a superb first victory of 2014.

The Chevrolet driver's success is the first non-Citroen feature race win of the season, although fellow Cruze runner Gianni Morbidelli scored a reversed-grid victory at the Hungaroring in May.

Reigate driver Chilton executed a perfect start as third-qualifier Yvan Muller immediately jumped past front row man Gabriele Tarquini's JAS Honda.

Chilton was unfazed by the interruption of a lengthy safety-car period, and pulled away from his former teammate Muller on the restart to extend a lead in excess of five seconds.

In the closing laps Chilton eased off to secure a comfortable 2.5sec margin of victory over Citroen's title favorites Muller and Jose Maria Lopez.

It was a tough day for the factory JAS Hondas, which after displaying signs of a performance breakthrough on Saturday posted a double retirement. Tarquini was forced to pit from second five laps from home, while team-mate Tiago Monteiro failed to progress beyond lap 14. Former champion Tarquini's problems promoted points leader Lopez to the final step on the podium.

Morbidelli completed a strong but lonely run to take fourth, ahead of Sebastien Loeb, who dropped two places on lap 11 but battled up from seventh past Norbert Michelisz to finish fifth.

Chinese racer Ma Qing Hua was hot on Loeb's heels for a considerable portion of the race, before running through a gravel trap. Moscow winner Ma's tumble down the order assisted a strong result from Lada's British pairing of James Thompson and Rob Huff who finished seventh and eighth.

The safety car was called on the second lap, when Munnich Motorsport's Rene Munnich and Dusan Borkovic tangled between Turns 10 and 11. Munnich's car came to rest on the inside of the track, with the Campos machine of Borkovic facing in the wrong direction tight-in behind.

Heavy duty cranes removed the stricken cars, but the clear-up process took eight laps. The attrition elevated TC2 points leader Franz Engstler to 10th and the final point.

Pos	Class	Driver	Team	Car	Laps	Time	Gap
1	TC1	Tom Chilton	ROAL Motorsport	Chevrolet	28	35m 44.890s	-
2	TC1	Yvan Muller	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	28	35m 47.383s	2.493s
3	TC1	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	28	35m 50.022s	5.132s
4	TC1	Gianni Morbidelli	All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport	Chevrolet	28	35m 55.363s	10.473s
5	TC1	Sebastien Loeb	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	28	35m 59.345s	14.455s
6	TC1	Norbert Michelisz	Zengo Motorsport	Honda	28	36m 02.128s	17.238s
7	TC1	James Thompson	LADA Sport Lukoil	Lada	28	36m 03.228s	18.338s
8	TC1	Robert Huff	LADA Sport Lukoil	Lada	28	36m 03.994s	19.104s
9	TC1	Mehdi Bennani	Proteam Racing	Honda	28	36m 22.856s	37.966s
10	TC2	Franz Engstler	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW	28	36m 39.761s	54.871s
11	TC1	Mikhail Kozlovskiy	LADA Sport Lukoil	Lada	27	36m 09.151s	1 Lap
12	TC1	Hugo Valente	Campos Racing	Chevrolet	27	36m 53.374s	1 Lap
13	TC2	John Filippi	Campos Racing	SEAT	26	36m 41.552s	2 Laps
14	TC2	Filipe Souza	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW	25	36m 38.260s	3 Laps
15	TC1	Ma Qing Hua	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	24	31m 59.620s	4 Laps
16	TC1	Gabriele Tarquini	Castrol Honda WTC Team	Honda	24	33m 38.453s	4 Laps
17	TC1	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport	Chevrolet	22	29m 44.891s	6 Laps
-	TC1	Tiago Monteiro	Castrol Honda WTC Team	Honda	13	19m 30.978s	Retirement
-	TC1	Dusan Borkovic	NIS Petrol by Campos Racing	Chevrolet	1	1m 17.082s	Retirement
-	TC1	Rene Munnich	All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport	Chevrolet	1	1m 18.052s	Retirement
-	TC2	Michael Soong	Campos Racing	SEAT	0	-	Withdrawn