Muller, Lopez share wins at Spa

• Italiano

Citroën do not release their hold on the 2014 World Touring Car Championship as Yvan Muller and José Maria Lopez share the WTCC wins at Spa-Francorchamps last weekend.

Muller, López and Sébastien Loeb finished again 1-2-3 for the French factory in Race 1. Muller beat team mates Loeb and López to the La Source hairpin at the start and never quite looked back. The only change in position at the front came when López outbraked Loeb at the end of the straight on the final lap. With three Citroën cars filling the podium, Gianni Morbidelli led home the rest of the field ahead of Tom Coronel, who passed works Honda driver Thiago Monteiro on the finish line. Franz Engstler, as usual, won the TC2T class from John Filippi and newcomer Norbert Nagy.

The second race was just a bit tougher for them, as the Citroën drivers started from eighth, ninth and tenth on the reversed grid. However, López and Muller completed another great recovery to claim first and second, while Loeb had to settle in fifth as he could not pass Coronel and Monteiro who were classified in third and fourth. Engstler continued to reign on the TC2 class, with two new wins.

With the weekend’s results, López allowed Muller to recover only two points in the Drivers’ Championship and the Argentine still leads by 39. The championship will resume after a five-week break at Termas de Río Hondo, Argentina, on August 3, for rounds 15 and 16.