Starting with the Brazilian round in South America, the FIA World Touring Car Championship now arrived at its final destination of the world wide tour, a traditional classic event in the East, Macau Grand Prix.

Before this final round of the series, the top three drivers in the point standings still had the possibility to clinch the drivers' title. The championship leader, Gabriele Tarquini, was pursued by his SEAT Sport teammate and the reigning champion Yvan Muller. Augusto Farfus in third was the sole representative of the BMW drivers in this championship battle. But, as for the manufacturers' title contention, the German marque gained a lot of points in the Japanese round and the gap with the leading manufacturer, SEAT, was now just three points, so the outcome was quite unpredictable.

The official qualifying session was held on Friday, November 20. The WTCC qualifying rules allows only ten fastest drivers in the first section (Q1) to go on to the second section (Q2) which decides the top ten grids. But soon after the start of Q1, Stefano D'Aste made a mistake and crashed on his own. Then things went from bad to worse for him as James Thompson's Lada Priora smashed into D'Aste's halted BMW!

It looked the attrition was going to be higher than usual, even in the Macau GP's standard. With Tarquini being on the top of the time sheet, the leading ten drivers - all of them were from the manufacturer teams - duly survived Q1 but, as soon as Q2 began, another and most improbable accident occurred on the track.

Because of a dirty surface which was the aftermath of the crash between D'Aste and Thompson, Muller spun and crashed into the barrier and then his car was hit hard by his teammate, Tarquini! Both of their cars were badly damaged and weren't able to continue the session.

The chaotic session was eventually won by Rob Huff of Chevrolet and two BWM drivers, Andy Priaulx and Farfus, followed to sit on the second and third grid for Race 1.

After a day off on Saturday, came the day to decide the 2009 WTCC champion. Two minutes after the noon, the field led by Huff left the grids for a rolling lap to head toward a nine lap battle on this six kilometer long, exciting and challenging race track.

As the signal turned to green, all cars went through Mandarin Oriental Bend with full throttles and approached Lisboa which was famous for the opening lap accident. But Priaulx wasn't there, because he hit the guard rail at Mandarin in the midst of congested pushing and shoving immediately after the start. The damage on the right-hand front corner of his car was so heavy that he had to retire on the spot.

Surprisingly, however, the whole field got through Lisboa without a major incident. But now Huff's Chevrolet Cruze was pursued by a bunch of SEAT drivers, Tiago Monteiro, Tarquini and Jordi Gene, as Farfus was beaten by them at the start. The Brazilian actually completed the opening lap in sixth.

The race went on rather quietly without any big accident and the leading drivers began to secure their positions by making a certain amount of gap between them. As three SEAT drivers in front of him, it seemed difficult for Farfus to climb up the positions to make his title hope alive.

On Lap 6, when the two thirds of race distance had passed, Huff had a 1.350 second lead to Monteiro in second. Tarquini was running 5.183 seconds behind the Portuguese driver but the gap rapidly started to shrink, as a result of tactical moves made by a few drivers, including Monteiro.

Tarquini overtook his teammate in the mountain section on the penultimate lap and moved up to second, followed by another teammate Gene. Farfus also got ahead of Monteiro on the same lap but he made a tactical choice to slow down to get a better starting position in Race 2.

Consequently, Huff safely scored his second consecutive win at Macau - he had won the second race of this event last year. The two SEAT drivers, Tarquini and Gene rounded out the top three and Farfus lost his mathematical chance for the title since he finished in eighth. The fifth place finisher, Yvan Muller, still had a possibility to beat the championship leader in the final race of the season, although his point deficit increased to seven points.

The YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy class was won by the championship leader, Tom Coronel.

The top eight starting grids for the second race were decided by the reverse grid rule as usual. The pole sitter was Farfus and he was followed by another BMW driver, Jorg Muller. Monteiro and Yvan Muller sat on the second row, while the championship leader, Tarquini, was to start the race from the seventh grid.

Helped by the standing start format in which rear wheel drive cars have a certain advantage, two BMWs duly led the field at the start of Race 2 and got through Lisboa and the subsequent mountain section. Yvan Muller gained a position at the corner to move up to third. The reputation for carnage at Lisboa seemed to be false at least for the WTCC races this year.

On Lap 3, however, Tom Boardman's SEAT crashed in the mountain section and halted on the track. Because of this, the Safety Car came out on the next lap and led the field for the following two laps. According to the WTCC rule, these two laps were excluded from the race distance, so the checkered flag was to fall when the race leader crossed the control line for the 11th time after the start.

At Lisboa on Lap 8, Nicola Larini smashed his Chevrolet into the barrier, after a contact with Alex Zanardi's BMW, and retired at the spot. It was a pity for him to end the race that way because he had announced the retirement from the championship at the end of this season.

But on the same lap, when the leading car was about to cross the line for Lap 9, there was a violent multi car accident at the exit of R Bend. Running wide at the right hand corner, Felix Porteiro hit the barrier on the outside and his BMW was bounced back and halted in the middle of the track. Then Franz Engstler collected the Porteiro's car and his car also stranded there, only to be smashed by Andre Couto's SEAT. As a result, the remains of these three cars and a lot of debris completely blocked the course.

The race had to be stopped by the red flag. Although the race organizers initially tried to restart it after clearing up the track, they had no choice but to declare the race was cut short and, according the rules, the final result was taken from the positions at the end of Lap 7, the last lap completed before the red flag was shown.

Consequently, Farfus took his sixth victory of the season - he got the most wins this year - and Jorg Muller in another BMW finished in second. But this 1-2 wasn't enough for the German manufacturer to regain the title, as the SEAT drivers followed in third to sixth, and the Spanish marque was crowned with the manufacturers' championship for second consecutive years.

While Yvan Muller finished in third, Tarquini's fifth place was good enough to hold off his teammate's challenge and the Italian deservedly secured the drivers' world championship title.

Despite triggering the red flag, Porteiro won the YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy class, because he was leading at the end of Lap 7. The championship Trophy was won by Coronel in the SUNRED Engineering's SEAT Leon.