Since ADVAN was appointed as the standard tire supplier of the FIA World Touring Car Championship in 2006, this was the fourth season opener of this highest level competition of touring cars in the world. As was the case last year, the venue of the kickoff event was Curitiba Circuit in Brazil and now the fierce battle for the championship got underway.

As this was the first event of the year, an additional practice session was held on Friday. Then after two more regular 30 minute practices on Saturday, all drivers and their 24 cars were ready for the official qualifying session.

The WTCC officials changed its qualifying procedures this year. Only the ten fastest drivers in the first part are allowed to proceed to the second part and the top ten grids were decided in the order of best lap times registered in the latter part.

Those ten drivers this time included the reigning champion Yvan Muller driving for SEAT, followed by the Chevrolet's ace Alan Menu and Muller's teammates, Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro. Then three BMW drivers, Jorg Muller, Andy Priaulx and Augusto Farfus, two more from the SEAT camp, Jordi Gene and Rickard Rydell, and Nicola Larini driving for Chevrolet filled the remaining slots.

The newly registered Russian manufacturer team, Lada, and the YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy contenders failed to send any of their drivers to the second part. But most of last year's championship contenders duly joined the top ten qualifiers and eventually the top five grids were occupied by the SEAT Sport drivers led by the pole sitter Yvan Muller.

Race 1 began 13:05 on Sunday. Starting from the upper grids, the SEAT drivers led the early stage of the race in an impregnable formation. From Lap 6 to 9, the Safety Car came in to control the field during the retrieval work of halted cars, including Stefano D'Aste's BMW, on the track side. However, this didn't cause any position changes among the leading drivers and Yvan Muller won the first race of the 2009 season after the domination of SEAT's "yellow train" throughout.

He was followed by three of his teammates, Gene, Rydell and Tarquini, which meant an all SEAT podium. Larini ended the race in fifth with a Chevrolet Cruz that the American marque introduced this season but he was demoted to 15th due to a penalty, which gave the fifth slot on the final result to Farfus who led the BMW drivers. From the Lada camp, Viktor Shapovalov was the highest finisher in 13th.

The YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy was won by Felix Porteiro who joined Scuderia Proteam this year. He actually ended the race in 10th but, after four drivers including Larini were penalized and demoted, the Spanish driver was classified in eighth. This meant he was starting Race 2 from the pole position.

The reason for penalizing Larini, Monteiro, Jaap van Lagen of Lada and the Porteiro's teammate, George Tanev, was overtaking just before the restart from the Safety Car period. They were given 30 second time penalty to the final result of Race 1.

Race 2 was to begin at 16:05 after a two and half hour interval from the finish of Race 1. But the sky suddenly opened and it turned into a heavy downpour as the time to start was approaching. For the safety reason, the start of Race 2 was delayed and it finally began at 16:20 led by the Safety Car.

After the two laps behind the Safety Car, the proper race started and the whole field led by the pole sitter, Porteiro, rushed into Turn 1, trailing a thick water screen. But the SEAT drivers proved to be the fastest again. On Lap 4, Tarquini overtook the two BMWs driven by Priaulx and Sergio Hernandez at one time and moved up to fourth. Then, on the next lap, the storming Italian attacked the race leader and managed to pass him.

Further down the field, Rydell and Gene were emerging and, by beating Farfus's BMW, they took up the third and fourth positions. The next target, Porteiro, also couldn't resist their charge for a long time and allowed the drivers of diesel-powered SEATs to form a 1-2-3.

Finally, the winner of Race 1, Muller came up to fourth following Tarquini, Rydell and Gene to complete the Spanish marque's total domination of the top four slots again. Porteiro eventually finished the race in seventh but it was enough to win the Independent class two races in a row.

The 2009 winners at Curitiba were the drivers who won the same races last year and they are the championship winner and the runner-up in 2008, namely Yvan Muller and Gabriele Tarquini. The season opening event couldn't end better for the SEAT camp.

Because of the rain between Race 1 and 2, the races were run on the completely different conditions, the first one on dry surface and the second on wet. However, both slick and rain tires manufactured and supplied by YOKOHAMA performed very well and firmly supported this important world championship event.