After the season opening two South American rounds in Brazil and Mexico and then a month long interval, the FIA World Touring Car Championship visited the African continent for the first time in its history for the third round of the series at Marrakech, Morocco.

This was the first FIA sanctioned world championship race event in the country in half a century since the Formula One Casablanca Grand Prix in 1958. This time, the race was held on a temporary street circuit set up in the city of Marrakech, the third largest city in Morocco, and the 'street fight' was closely watched by many of the city residents.

As mentioned in the previous report, the newly introduced Compensation Weight system, which adjusts each model's minimum weight according to the results from preceding events, was in force from this round. On top of that, an additional compensation measure which further reduces the minimum weight of BMW 320si run by Independent Trophy contending teams by 15 kg was announced just before the event and came into effect immediately. On this Moroccan round's entry list, this was applied to six BMW drivers, Stefano D'Aste, Franz Engstler, Kristian Poulsen, George Tanev, Felix Porteiro and Vitor Postiglione.

Since the teams didn't have any knowledge of the new street track at Marrakech, an extra test session was held on Friday before the customary two practice sessions on Saturday and these three sessions were totally dominated by the SEAT's 'yellow train'. After Yvan Muller topped the first session, the Spanish marque's drivers equipped with the turbo diesel engines locked their opponents out of the top five positions in other two sessions.

However, the situation looked a little different in the qualifying session. The Chevrolet drivers pulled up and the top three slots in QF1 were filled by Alain Menu who was the fastest, Nicola Larini and Rob Huff, followed by the quartet of SEAT Leon TDI drivers, with only Rickard Rydell in the SEAT camp stranding outside of the top ten.

In contrast with them, the BMW drivers were generally struggling. Led by Andy Priaulx in eighth, Jorg Muller in ninth and an Independent Trophy contender, Franz Engstler, completed the top ten, thus just three drivers were able to proceed in GF2 representing the German marque.

Chevrolet Cruzes were still the fastest cars in QF2, so the front row for Race 1 looked to be occupied by Huff and Menu, while the latter prematurely ended the session by damaging his car at Turn 2. But the Swiss was penalized for failing to comply with the weighing procedure - the driver' car didn't reach its garage under its own power after the weighing - and all his lap times during GF2 were deleted. As a result, he was to start the first race on Sunday from the tenth grid.

Therefore, the second to fourth grids were filled by the SEAT drivers, Gabriele Tarquini, Yvan Muller and Jordi Gene, and then Larini followed in fifth. The BMW camp had an uphill battle again and Engstler was the fastest of them, probably helped by the 15kg weight reduction applied to the independent BMW cars.

Many expected eventful races on Sunday because they were run on a confined street circuit. Race 1 - the fifth round of the series - started at five past 1 p.m. The pole sitter, Huff, went through the first corner ahead of the field but Rydell unluckily hit the tire barrier there and damaged his car's suspension, as the first victim of the pushing and shoving in the following pack, and his stranded car caused the Safety Car come out for clearing up the track.

After the race resumed, the race leader kept a consistent pace and remained there until the checkered flag fell, deftly checking a pursuit of Tarquini. This was the first win for the Chevrolet's new weapon, Cruze, that was newly introduced this year and Huff expressed his joy in an exuberant gesture of victory during the parade lap.

The winner of the Yokohama Independent Trophy class was a Moroccan racer, Mehdi Bennani, and his success in the first ever WTCC event in the country added some more excitement to the podium ceremony. Born in 1983, Bennani achieved solid results in kart racing in his homeland and then turned to car racing. He also had some experience in the Euro F3000 series before making a debut in the WTCC.

After a 30 minute interval, the competitors took their starting grids for Race 2 - the sixth race of the series. At that point, the ambient temperature was 28.4℃ with the surface temperature at 54.4℃. The sun was shining above the hot and dry track surfaces.

At the start, however, Gene had a problem with his car and couldn't join the second race of the day. All other cars left their grids when the red light blacked out, led by the pole sitter, Jorg Muller who finished the first race in eighth, and two Chevrolets of Menu and Larini followed him when they entered Turn 1.

Menu made a move at Turn 2 only to go wide at the corner. Eventually, he missed out taking the lead position but lost out to his teammate, too, so he was in third when he came back to the track. Meanwhile, there was a multi-car accident behind them, which required the Safety Car to come out for the second time in the day, before completing the opening lap again.

As soon as the race re-started, Larini now in second began to push the German opponent in front of him very hard and, in the middle phase of the race, the two displayed an exciting side-by-side dogfight on the confined street race track which had few overtaking point during a lap.

But Muller's small mistake at the last corner of Lap 8, which made him go a bit wide, was enough for the Italian to overtake him and take up the top slot. Then the German came under the heavy pressure from Huff who moved up to third in the closing stage but, despite the Briton's relentless attack with his headlights flashing as warning almost everywhere, Muller narrowly managed to keep his position until the finish.

As a result, Larini who has been driving for Chevrolet since 2005, the inaugural year of the championship, scored his long-awaited first win in the series. Muller finished in second, followed by the winner of Race 1, Huff, who got on the podium for the second time in one day.

Engstler won the Independent class in Race 2, which put him in second in the privateer's championship.