The 2009 FIA World Touring Car Championship, which consists of 12 rounds and 24 races, began its European leg, after touring from two South American rounds in Brazil and Mexico to the first appearance in the African Continent in Morocco.

The opening match in Europe was held at Pau, France. The battles on the temporary street track, the second consecutive round on the same kind of circuit after the Moroccan round, saw total chaos, however.

It started from the technical check after the qualifying session on Saturday. As a result of investigation, as many as nine cars were found exceeding the maximum engine speed or maximum turbo boost pressure allowed by the regulations and the drivers of those nine cars were penalized by disallowing all their times in Q2 or some of their fastest times in Q1.

This included two factory BMW drivers, Andy Priaulx and Sergio Hernandez, Tom Coronel of SEAT, all three Chevrolet drivers, Rob Huff, Alain Menu and Nicola Larini, and Felix Porteiro of Proteam Motorsport, all of whom were disallowed all qualifying times posted in Q2.

Yvan Muller also lost his fastest time and Stefano D'Aste had his four fastest times in Q1 taken away, as they weren't able to go into Q2. Consequently, it was Augusto Farfus of BMW Team Germany who sat on the pole position for Race 1.

Including the Brazilian, the top three slots of starting grids for the first race of the day - the series' seventh race - were occupied by BMWs, as Jorg Muller was in second and Franz Engstler, the fastest independent class driver in the qualifying session, was in third.

But Huff on the fourth grid made a superb start and moved up to second off the line. He then pushed Farfus so hard that the decisive moment came as early as on Lap 2 at Pont Oscar. Huff didn't miss his first opportunity to overtake the race leader, as Farfus' BMW went a bit wide at the corner, and gained the lead.

Now it's Farfus's turn to push the leader from behind to regain the top slot but Huff was skillful enough to hold off all attempts to pass him made by the Brazilian. After a tense battle that lasted until the final lap, the Chevrolet driver managed to hold on to his lead and scored his second win of the year since he opened his account in Race 1 at Marrakech. For Chevrolet, this was the third consecutive win since then.

The runner-up, Farfus, was followed by his colleagues of the factory BMW camp, Jorg Muller, Priaulx and Hernandez, which meant the German manufacturer narrowly missed its first win of the season. The Independent Trophy class winner of the race, Engstler, came in seventh overall.

Porteiro and Tom Coronel touched each other on the final lap, when the latter was leading the independent class, and consequently the Dutchman was pushed out of the racing line and lost the position. But the Stewards judged the Porteiro's driving in this incident as an unsafe action on the track, thus he was excluded from the result of Race 1 afterwards - and this promoted Engstler into sixth in the final result.

Race 2 - the series' eighth race - plunged into turmoil soon after its standing start.

The pole sitter for the race was Menu in his Chevrolet Cruze having Engstler and Porteiro, yet to be given a penalty, in tow in second and third respectively.

When the red lights went out to signal the start of the race, the pole sitting Menu didn't make the best getaway and lost out to the two BMW drivers. But he fought back immediately and passed Porteiro to pursue the race leading Engstler.

Then came havoc. Firstly, Porteiro now in third hit Sergio Hernandez' BMW and sent it into the barriers. For this incident, Porteiro was given a drive-through penalty. Further down the field, a contact between Priaulx and Jorg Muller caused both of them hitting the barriers along with Tom Boardman spinning into the wall on the other place, and all of them damaged their cars more or less.

With so much debris scattered everywhere on the narrow track with effectively no escape zones as a result of these incidents, the Safety Car was called to come out. However, when the slow-running Safety Car joined from the pit exit just past the blind first corner, the leading pack entered the corner from the pit straight and found the Safety Car in the middle of the track. Inevitably, Engstler who was leading the group had no chance to avoid hitting it, resulting in both heavily damaged cars halted on the track.

The bizarre accident between the Safety Car and a competitor caused a red flag to clear up the stranded cars and debris, as well as fluids spilt on the track. It took almost thirty minutes before everything was ready to restart the race.

Through the rather quiet racing after the restart, the leading pack was narrowed down to just four cars, two Chevrolets and two BMWs. Among them, Menu and Farfus contended for the top slot, while Huff and Priaulx put up a fight for the third place, displaying the double duels between the American and German marques in the closing stage.

The breathtaking tail-to-nose battles lasted until the final lap but the race was hit by another accident on that lap. The independent class leader, Eric Cayrolle, who made the first appearance in the championship in this round on his home soil, had a heavy contact with Larini's Chevrolet after hitting the guard rail and bouncing back to the track.

The two cars halted and blocked the tight street circuit, so the race was ended by the second red flag of the day, as there was no more lap to be completed. According to the rules, the order at the control line on the previous lap became the final result. Therefore, Menu scored his first win of the season and Chevrolet extended its winning streak to four with the second double win after the same feat in the Moroccan round.

The Independent Trophy class was eventually won by Cayrolle, despite the Frenchman pulled the trigger of the incident which prematurely ended the race, after showing a good performance to the crowd of spectators in his homeland.