WTCC: Tarquini wins for Honda in race two

Gabriele Tarquini provided relief to Honda after a troubled qualifying session by giving the factory team its first win of the season in the reversed-grid race at Suzuka.

The Italian and JAS teammate Tiago Monteiro struggled for performance on new tires in qualifying and lined up tenth and eleventh on the grid for race one. Crucially, Tarquini's position earned him pole for thee reversed-grid race, and the former WTCC champion was unchallenged to reward Honda with a home win.

"It is the right place to score a victory," said Tarquini, who saved two new tires for the race to maximise his opportunity for success.

"Unfortunately it is only [Honda's] second victory of the year, but the pace was a much better showing than yesterday."

Dusan Borkovic became the first Serbian to stand on a world championship podium by taking second place. The Campos Chevrolet driver survived being tapped by the chasing Norbert Michelisz into Suzuka's final chicane on the opening lap. Borkovic took to the escape road and continued with no apparent loss of pace to finish 2.6sec ahead of Zengo Honda driver Michelisz at the checkered flag.

"I was afraid to make a mistake in the first laps, so I didn't want to push that hard," said Borkovic. "Norbert was much quicker and because of that we touched a little bit. It was a normal racing accident."

Former Japanese Formula 3 and Formula Nippon champion Tom Coronel was kept busy in the closing laps as heavy pressure was applied from the Citroen trio of Yvan Muller, new champion Jose Maria Lopez and Sebastien Loeb. Perhaps chastened after clouting Hugo Valente earlier in the race, Muller resisted any further bold overtaking efforts, and the Dutch veteran held his cool to take fourth.

Lopez had shoulder-rubbed his way past Loeb on the exit of Spoon earlier in the race, proving that overtaking on the Suzuka Grand Prix circuit was possible if a challenge.

Valente was knocked out of fifth place by Muller at the hairpin on lap four. The Campos driver had extended a small gap over Muller, but took an extremely wide line into the hairpin that invited a lunge from the number one C-Elysee. Muller smacked into the rear of Cruze but emerged from a scramble of tire smoke on the exit of the corner maintaining his position ahead of his two teammates.