The second event of the European leg of the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) was held at Pau. The venue for the seventh and eighth races of the series was a temporary street track, prepared by closing public roads in this historic French town.

Because the course is relatively narrow, there are fewer overtaking points and because the pole sitter has a tremendous advantage, the qualifying result became more important than usual.

The fastest driver in the qualifying session on Saturday, May 31st, was Augusto Farfus of BMW Team Germany. In addition to the fact that he had only 3kg of Success Weight, he was helped by the series organizers' decision to reduce the minimum weight of BMW 320is by 15kg (and that of Honda Accord by 20kg) as a performance equalizing measure. That was announced just before the French round.

On race day, June 1st, many residents of Pau and motor sport fans crowded along the track. The spectators cheered drivers not only from the stands but also from the balconies or rooftops of buildings, which are common scenes in street races.

At 12:00, twenty-four cars left their starting grids for the rolling lap, led by the marshal car. After they completed 2.760km pace lap, the marshal car gave way, the signal turned green and Race 1 (the seventh race of the series) started.

The competitors managed to go through the narrow Turn 1 without any notable incident, but a multi-car accident that is typical of a street circuit happened at the Lycee hair-pin on the same lap.

After the leading echelon went through the corner, Alain Menu in mid-field was hit from behind by Alex Zanardi, which caused the Chevrolet driver to go sideways and stop on the track. As the Italian's BMW also lost control and stopped on the spot, these two cars virtually blocked the way of the following cars.

Among the innocent victims of the incident, one of the YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy contenders, Pierre-Yves Corthals, hit the guard rails and was forced to retire. Some other drivers narrowly avoided hitting the others, only to be rammed from behind!

Because of this pile up, the race was temporarily stopped and resumed after a twenty minutes break with a lap led by the Safety Car. The second part of the race went rather quietly. The race leader Farfus pulled away from the pursuing pack lap by lap.

At the halfway point of the 20 lap race, he already had a 9.808 second gap with Yvan Muller's SEAT Leon TDI and eventually finished first after extending the gap to 17.851 seconds. This was the first win of the season for him and the BMW camp.

During the less than four hour interval between Race 1 and Race 2 (the eighth race of the series), the track conditions totally changed. While Race 1 was run under a sunny sky, the second race of the day was soaked by rain.

This seemed to make overtaking almost impossible on this narrow street course and help the driver who finished Race 1 in eighth, thus starting Race 2 from the pole position. The lucky guy was the reigning WTCC champion Andy Priaulx (BMW Team UK).

Perhaps, it wasn't his luck but rather a result of clever calculation. After adding some points for taking eighth in Race 1, Priaulx led throughout the wet race and no one could threaten his position until the finish.

As a result, the two races of the French round were won by BMW drivers and their performances were good enough to mark the German marque's fightback in the middle phase of the season.

On the temporary street course where the track surfaces are more slippery and bumpy than that of permanent circuits, ADVAN racing tires displayed splendid performance both on dry and wet surfaces and perfectly supported the intense battles of the highest level touring car races in the world.