After two "fly away" events in Brazil and Morocco, the 2010 World Touring Car Championship came back to the European Continent which is the primary battle field for the championship. The first round of the European leg was held at Monza in Italy. WTCC visited the venue after a two year absence, as it was missing from the last year's calendar.

YOKOHAMA Rubber Co., the official tire supplier for WTCC since 2006, became the title sponsor for this Monza round of the world's highest level championship of touring car races. Therefore, the event was named as "WTCC YOKOHAMA Race of Italy" which clearly illustrated the Japanese company's commitment to help the championship's promotional effort.

The action began on Friday, as the teams were given an official test session a day earlier than usual. The fastest driver of the day was Augusto Farfus in a factory prepared BMW 320si. Although the Brazilian hadn't been very successful so far this season, he was consistently quick around the circuit from the beginning of the session and no one was able to beat his best lap time, 2'01"491, until the session ended.

As usual, the top ten qualifiers were decided in the first qualifying session on Saturday. Among those ten drivers who were allowed to run in the subsequent second session, the championship leader, Gabriele Tarquini in a SEAT Leon TDi set the fastest time and two Chevrolet drivers, Robb Huff and Yvan Muller, followed.

It was Farfus again, however, who was the fastest around the Italian track during the second session, the ten minute battle for the best starting position for Race 1. This was the first pole position of the year for the BMW camp. Following Huff who shared the front row with Farfus, his teammate Priaulx also took the third grid which was a good position for the race.

But, during the opening lap of Race 1, Huff overtook the pole sitting BMW and led the race. Meanwhile, Tarquini made a splendid start from the seventh grid and managed to move up to second on the same lap. When they came back to pit straight for the second time, the Italian's SEAT Leon was leading Huff's Chevrolet Cruze but the gap between them was less than a half second. Priaulx was in third, followed by Farfus who dropped to sixth in the first lap but recovered to fourth, both watching their times to come.

The nine lap race around the 5.793km race track of Monza had two big moments on the final lap. The famous high speed circuit has three chicanes and WTCC race cars rode over the curbs of them, fighting the typical heated battles with each others, not to slow down too much. This is a very effective way to drive here but it inevitably increases the risk to damage the cars or tires when they hit the curbs.

On the very final lap, the race leader, Tarquini, was hit by a slow puncture and forced to slow down. This gave the lead position to Huff but then the Briton also lost the air of one of his tires at the last corner of the lap!

As a result, Priaulx and Farfus went by the troubled Chevrolet and scored an unexpected one two finish for BMW. Thanks to the gap he had built until then, Huff managed to cross the finish line in third with only three inflated tires and got on the podium's last place.

In the YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy class, Mehdi Bennani finished first. But, afterwards, he was given a 30 second time penalty for cutting a chicane during the race, which demoted him to fifth in the class, so the actual winner was Harry Vaulkhard.

The pole position for Race 2 on the top eight reversed grids was given to Michel Nykjaer. The Danish driver kept the lead after the standing start and completed the first lap as the race leader, holding off his SEAT teammates. Tarquini, who started from the second grid, lost the position to Muller but regained it on Lap 2, while Nykjaer was still leading.

But two champions chased the rookie so hard and the Italian veteran captured the lead position on Lap 3. Soon after that, however, a drive through penalty was given to Tarquini for the jump start and he dropped out of contention for the victory.

Now Nykjaer was leading the race again, followed by Muller, Tom Coronel and Huff, and his pace was good enough to defend the position until the final lap. And the Danish rookie driver looked quite likely to score his maiden win but another last minute upset was waiting for him, just as Tarquini and Huff suffered in Race 1. Nykjaer's SEAT Leon lost the air of its left front tire and he wasn't able to come back to the finish line!

The eventual winner was Muller and this was his second win of the season since the opening round in Brazil. Coronel finished in second and Huff in third, so it was a certainly good race for the Chevrolet camp which sent two drivers on the podium.

YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy was won by Stefano D'aste this time.