After raising the curtain in Brazil, the 2011 FIA World Touring Car Championship now came back to its main battlefield, the European Continent, and the first stop was Circuit Zolder in Belguim.

Zolder had joined the WTCC calendar last year and the 4.1km race track is charaterized by heavy undulation. As it was the first round of European leg of the championship, a couple of teams and drivers made their first appearance this year in this round and, as usual, the expectations for heated battles were already high when the race weekend came.

The pace setters in the qualifying sessions on Saturday were the Chevrolet drivers. Robert Huff set the fastest lap time and secured the pole position for Race 1 on Sunday and Alain Menu rounded out the front row domination by the American marque. Gabriele Tarquini in a SEAT Leon TDi sat on the third grid, followed by another Chevrolet driver, Yvan Muller, and Tiago Monteiro in a diesel powered SEAT.

The race day was favored by good weather. Race 1 - the third race of the championship - got underway with a rolling start and leading drivers went through the first corner without any mishap, thus keeping their grid order. In the middle of following field, however, Tom Coronel made a good start from the eleventh grid and he was literally pushing Norbert Michelisz, who was seventh on the grids, very hard from behind. As a result, the Hungarian's BMW 320 TC lost nearly half portion of its rear bumper but he managed to keep his position.

Soon after the Coronel's aggressive drive attracted the spectator's attention, he pulled the trigger of another incident on Lap 3. The Dutch lost a couple of positions on the second lap and was trying hard to make up for it. Then Fredy Barth suddenly spun in front of him and, although Coronel managed to avoid contact with the spinning SEAT, his BMW went sideways and heavily hit by Franz Engstler's car from behind, which caused a lot of damage to both cars.

As a few other accidents occurred on the same lap, the Safety Car came out and the race was to start again with surviving cars.

The battle resumed on Lap 8. Huff was at the head of the field and Menu, Tarquini, Muller, Tiago Monteiro, Michelisz and Kristian Poulsen followed. These leading drivers cleared the first corner after the restart in this order but Muller immediately began to put pressure on Tarquini. The French man swiftly overtook the Italian's SEAT at the exit of Turn 11 on the same lap and this made the Chevrolet's 1-2-3 formation.

The leaders eventually finished in this order and the American manufacturer accomplished podium domination for the second time, following the same feat in the season opener. With his second victory of the season, Huff now had 62 points and extended the gap with Menu who has 51 after this race.

The YOKOHAMA Trophy contenders displayed fierce fight for the class win in the second part of the race, after the Safety Car period. The early leader, Michelisz, was followed by Poulsen with only a 0.247 second gap on Lap 11. Then the Dane began his attack in the final sector of the lap and got ahead of his opponent by half a car length on the short straightaway following to Turn 14, after running side-by-side until then. Poulsen kept the upper hand on the next two corners and got to Lap 12 as the new race leader. For the next two laps, Michel Nykjaer in a SEAT Leon and Darryl O'Young in a Chevrolet Cruze joined in the battle for the YOKOHAMA Trophy but Poulsen guradually pulled away from Michelisz to score his second class victory of the season, following to the win in Race 1 in Brazil.

Race 2 started at 13:45 p.m., after a ten minute delay, as the first race of the day had took longer than scheduled due to the Safety Car period.

The starting grids for this second race had been decided according to the result of Q1 on Saturday and Barth and Engstler were to start the race from the first and second grids respectively. However, their cars were badly damaged in Race 1 and weren't able to leave the pits before the pit lane exit was closed. Consequently, the pole position was handed to Tarquini and three Chevrolets of Huff, Menu and Muller lined up, following to the Italian's SEAT. The YOKOHAMA Trophy winner of Race 1, Poulsen, was on the fifth grid as the leading BMW drivers whose rear wheel drive cars have a certain advantage in the standing start format used for Race 2.

While the leading manufacturers' cars kept their positions from the start, however, Poulsen crashed his car during the opening lap and became the first driver to retire from the race when he was pursuing the top four.

On Lap 2, Huff running in second began his ferocious attack against Tarquini. The Briton weaved his car just behind the Tarquini's SEAT Leon to put a heavy pressure on the Italian. Apparently, Huff was ready to take advantage of his opponent's slightest mistake and kept to follow it in tail-to-nose. He actually tried to get abreast of Tarquini on a straightaway on Lap 3 but the SEAT driver managed to fend it off.

The situation which three Chevrolets hunted down fleeing Tarquini's car didn't seem to last long when the 13 lap race was reaching its halfway point. The Cruzes just looked like three blue raptors chasing their prey, as the latest model has sharper front end appearance than the previous Lacetti model.

But it settled in a different way than expected. On Lap 6, Muller then running in fourth made a mistake and went wide at the exit of Turn 3. The Frenchman came back to the track but he was passed by Monteiro and O'Young and, ultimately, forced to end his race at the pit because his oil cooler was damaged when he went off.

Then Huff became side-by-side with Tarquini when they exited the high speed Turn 7 on the next lap and both of them wouldn't give way each other on their approach to the next chicane, which resulted in contact. Having to cut the chicane straight across and went off the track, the Chevrolet driver lost a few positions when he resumed racing.

On the other hand, the Italian veteran was able to regain the control of his car and remained in the lead position until the checkered flag fell. His persistent drive led to the victory which broke the Chevrolet's winning streak.

The YOKOHAMA Trophy was won by O'Young who, along with his teammate Yukinori Taniguchi, had switched to Cruze 1.6T from this round. The bomboo-engineering's lead driver performed very well and finished in fourth overall.