Last year, a World Touring Car Championship event was held at Brno, Czech Republic. It was the first time in nearly twenty years for Brno to host a world championship car race. The WTCC visited the Czech city again this year and held hotly contested battles, but the date of the event was moved forward almost three months earlier than that of last year.

Brno is a permanent circuit whose length is more than five kilometers. It has a wide track and many medium to high speed corners, which is very much in contrast with the previous event in the street circuit at Pau (France), and it actually changed the aspect of the battle.

At five past noon on 17th June, Race 1 (the ninth round) commenced with a rolling start. The pole sitter from the qualifying session on Saturday was Felix Porteiro in a BMW, followed by Andy Priaulx and Alessandro Zanardi, which meant BMW's monopolisation of the top three.

From his first pole position in the WTCC, Porteiro made a good start and zipped through Turn 1. But, in the following group, Priaulx made contact with the SEAT Leon of Pierre-Yves Corthals, which saw the former slide off to the gravel bed, resulting in his premature retirement on the spot. Besides this incident, another accident occurred elsewhere causing the Safety Car to come in as early as Lap 1.

After that, however, all drivers in the upper echelon enjoyed a rather quiet race and Porteiro led it throughout and finished first. His teammate, Alex Zanardi of BMW Team Italy-Spain, who moved up to third place in Lap 7, also got on the podium, which doubled the team's joy. With Jorg Muller and Augusto Farfus finishing second and fourth, BMW accomplished a dominant 1-2-3-4 in Race 1.

At 15:35 on the same day, Race 2 (the tenth round) started. The grid for a standing start was determined by the result of Race 1 and Alain Menu in a Chevrolet Lacetti sat on the pole position for Race 2. Gabriele Tarquini in a SEAT and Nicola Larini in another Chevrolet followed the Swiss driver, as Yvan Muller who finished Race 1 in sixth, didn't start Race 2 due to transmission failure of his SEAT Leon.

It was BMW drivers who rocketed off the grid and moved up in the opening lap. When twenty-four cars came around to the homestretch, Menu and Tarquini still kept their positions but they were closely pursued by Zanardi, Farfus and Muller.

On the second lap, Zanardi tried to pass Menu when the latter made a small mistake, but when they touched each other, Tarquini, Farfus and Muller tookover the top three.

Two BMWs overtook Tarquini after some hard pushing on the following lap and then held a really hot battle which is characteristic of the WTCC. After some side-by-side contention for the top slot on Lap 4, Muller took the lead and steadily kept it to the finish. It was the second win of the season for the winner of the opening round in Curitiba. Following the German driver, Farfus and Porteiro finished in second and third, so the podium of Race 2 was again occupied by the BMW drivers who dominated these two races.

Born in Spain, August 26th, 1983.

At the age of fourteen, he finished the Spanish Junior Kart Championship series in second before he won the title three years later (2000).
In parallel with his participation in the European Kart Championship, he also took part in the Spanish Formula Three Championship in 2001. The young formula driver, Porteiro, spent three seasons in the World Series by Nissan from 2002, and then in the renamed World Series by Renault the following year (2005) before moving to the GP2 series in 2006.
For 2007, he signed with BMW Team Italy-Spain to drive in the WTCC. This is his first season to compete in a tin-top race car.

Born in Italy, March 2nd, 1962.

After starting in Kart races, he drove for three seasons in the FIA F3000 Championship from 1985.
In 1987, he stepped up to Formula One and finished sixth once, despite driving for rather minor teams with very limited budgets and ordinary organisations.
After giving up his career as a Grand Prix driver, he turned to touring car races and drove an Alfa Romeo in the British Touring Car Championship in 1994 when he took the crown of the series with eight wins.
He continued to come to the fore in several touring car race series in Europe and won the European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) title in 2003 with Alfa Romeo again.
He has taken part in the WTCC since its inaugural year, 2005, wheb he drove an Alfa Romeo and a SEAT from 2006 season.

Brno (Czech Republic)

The second largest city of the Czech Republic, Brno, flourishes as an industrial city of which the backbone is the textile industry. At the same time, a lot of talented people in the artistic fields gather here and the city has the national opera house and several national philharmonic orchestras that are active worldwide.

The circuit of Brno is well-known as the Mecca of motorcycle races and it has hosted Moto GP events for years. Of course, many car races have been held on the venue but 1987 was when it hosted the last World Championship car race.

Then after nineteen years absence of a World Championship event, Brno joined the calendar of the WTCC since 2006. Having several middle to high speed corners, this fast track is very wide and has significant undulation. Its length of 5,403m is relatively long by today's standard.