Farfus wins race, Tarquini takes title

Date published : 22 Nov 2009 - 06:14:54

Augusto Farfus won an incident-filled final round of the World Touring Car Championship in Macau on Sunday, but all eyes were on Gabriele Tarquini who clinched the drivers' title.Farfus led away cleanly from pole position and held an advantage throughout the early stages of the race from BMW team-mate Jorg Muller, who himself was fighting off the close attention of SEAT duo Yvan Muller and Tiago Monteiro. Behind them, Tarquini had moved up fifth on lap seven when Jordi Gene slowed.The battle at the front was interrupted by a safety car on lap three, when Tom Boardman crashed in the Solitude Esses, and then the race was red-flagged at the end of lap eight when there was a spectacular crash at the R Bend final corner.Felix Porteiro ran wide and hit the barriers, before his car was swiped by Franz Engstler's BMW. Engstler's car was then left stationary in the middle of the track where it was collected heavily by local driver Andre Couto.With debris all over the track there was no option but to halt the race and, after a brief delay, it was decided that the event would not be restarted.It meant that Tarquini's fifth placed finish was enough for him to take the WTCC crown, with his SEAT team doing enough to take the manufacturers' title.Tarquini had been suffering an engine misfire in the second race so was nervous about his chances of taking the title if there had been a restart - so was relieved that his accidents earlier in the weekend and the late drama had not hit his title chances."It is fantastic," said Tarquini. "I had some crashes in practice and qualifying, which isn't the best way to approach the weekend in Macau, but the team did a fantastic job to rebuild the car."Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Augusto Farfus BMW 22m20.166s 2. Jorg Muller BMW 0.801s 3. Yvan Muller SEAT 1.201s 4. Tiago Monteiro SEAT 1.980s 5. Gabriele Tarquini SEAT 3.815s 6. Jordi Gene SEAT 5.018s 7. Nicola Larini Chevrolet 5.359s 8. Robert Huff Chevrolet 5.895s 9. Alex Zanardi BMW 6.167s10. Rickard Rydell SEAT 6.712s11. Sergio Hernandez BMW 7.764s12. Felix Porteiro BMW 8.290s13. Andy Priaulx BMW 8.583s14. Franz Engstler BMW 9.390s15. Norbertu Taniguchi BMW 10.635s16. Takayuki Aoki BMW 12.819s17. Andre Couto SEAT 13.531s18. Kit Meng Lei BMW 24.275s19. Henry Ho BMW 27.175s20. Jo Merszei BMW 27.530s21. Alain Menu Chevrolet 2 lapsRetirements Tom Coronel SEAT 4 laps Tom Boardman SEAT 2 laps Kristian Poulsen BMW 2 laps