By alley - Jun 7, 2015, 10:21 AM ET

WTCC: Monteiro holds off Huff in Moscow Race 2

Honda's Tiago Monteiro remained out front ahead of Rob Huff's Lada in an action-packed second World Touring Car Championship race at Moscow Raceway to take his first win since 2013.

The ex-Formula 1 driver finished the race three seconds clear of Huff, who came through to finish second at Lada's home event from seventh on the grid.

Monteiro led from the reverse grid pole position as fellow Civic driver Norbert Michelisz moved up into second ahead of Lada debutant Nicky Catsburg.

Ma Qing Hua also got a better start than Catsburg but ran wide at the first corner after slight contact, and was pushed back to fifth behind Hugo Valente.

Huff made quick work of passing Ma and Valente in the early stages and was up into a podium position by the end of lap five of 16 when he took third away from Catsburg at the final corner.

The British driver went on to claim second with a robust move on Michelisz, but was unable to do anything about Monteiro.

Portuguese racer Monteiro's win was the factory Honda team's first of the season, but it was a mixed race for the squad.

Gabriele Tarquini was following Huff through the order but his attempted move on Catsburg for fourth resulted in contact between the two, which fired the Italian veteran off track and into the barriers.

Catsburg survived the clash to make it two Ladas in the top four, while Ma was the first of the Citroens home in fifth after passing Valente at the final corner with four laps to go.

Sebastien Loeb attempted to follow his Chinese team-mate through but was instead dumped behind race one winner Yvan Muller, before both eventually worked their way ahead of Valente.

Muller had spent the earlier part of the race scrapping with team-mate and title rival Jose Maria Lopez before the Argentinian was forced to serve a drive-through penalty for jumping the start, leaving him 12th at the finish and out of the points for the first time this season.

That means Lopez's championship has been eroded from 50 points at the start of the weekend to 35 in front of Muller.

RESULTS - 16 LAPS:

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Gap
1	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	27m12.922s
2	Rob Huff	LADA Sport Rosneft	Lada	3.155s
3	Norbert Michelisz	Zengo Motorsport	Honda	5.549s
4	Nicky Catsburg	LADA Sport Rosneft	Lada	8.074s
5	Ma Qing Hua	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	12.188s
6	Yvan Muller	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	14.674s
7	Sebastien Loeb	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	18.010s
8	Hugo Valente	Campos Racing	Chevrolet	20.803s
9	Tom Chilton	ROAL Motorsport	Chevrolet	20.968s
10	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport	Chevrolet	21.207s
11	Rickard Rydell	Nika International	Honda	21.686s
12	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	24.659s
13	Gregoire Demoustier	Craft-Bamboo Racing	Chevrolet	29.019s
14	Stefano D'Aste	All-Inkl.com Munnich Motorsport	Chevrolet	31.584s
15	John Filippi	Campos Racing	Chevrolet	34.404s
-	Gabriele Tarquini	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	Not running
-	Jaap van Lagen	LADA Sport Rosneft	Lada	Not running
-	Mehdi Bennani	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	Not running