The world's pinnacle of touring car sprint races, the FIA World Touring Car Championship made its fourth visit to Japan. The country is the home of the ADVAN racing tires which have been the sole specified tires of the series since 2006, the championship's second year since its inauguration.

Instead of Okayama International Circuit which had hosted the last three Japanese round of WTCC, the championship's 19th and 20th races this year were held at Suzuka East Circuit that uses the 2.2km eastern portion of the famous Formula One race track. The longest entry list of the season so far had 24 cars on it, including several local aces, such as Yukinori Taniguchi who is the first ever Japanese driver to take part in a full championship this year in a Bamboo Racing's Chevrolet, and Toshihiro Arai, the two time P-WRC champion, driving a manufacturer's car from the American marque.

As this was a fly away round, a 30 minute test session was run on Friday. The fastest driver in this session was Alan Menu in a Chevrolet Cruze and Robert Dahlgren in the sole Volvo C30 Drive followed. Arai was the eighth fastest and only 0.031 seconds shy of the veteran of the SEAT camp, Gabriele Tarquini.

The two practice sessions on Saturday morning were run on the wet or damp surfaces due to the rain until the early morning. But when the qualifying session in the afternoon began, the track surfaces dried already, while thick clouds still covered the whole circuit.

The Q1 session was interrupted twice by the red flag due to the halted cars on the track but the result was really close, as 19 cars out of 24 were covered within a second. In this session, the YOKOHAMA Trophy contenders took the top two places, as Colin Turkington was the first and Michel Nykjar in second. Darryl O'Young, who had been in good form this weekend so far, registered the tenth fastest time and secured the pole position in the reversed grids for Race 2.

To the local fan's disappointment, no Japanese driver got into the top ten of Q1 to proceed to the Q2 session. However, on his home soil, Taniguchi was in twelfth which was his best qualifying result to date. Arai was 16th in Q1 session but all of his qualifying times were deleted because he failed to stop at the weighing spot during the session and was penalized for that costly mistake. Therefore, he had to start the races from the bottom end of the grids.

The fierce fight for the better grid positions between the manufacturer drivers began in Q2. Chevrolet has never missed the pole position so far this season, and was the dominant force again in Suzuka. Keeping his good form since the Friday session, Menu claimed his fourth pole position of the season. The championship leader, Yvan Muller, followed in second but the American manufacturer's top three domination was blocked by Dahlgren, as the Volvo driver beat Robert Huff to take the third grid.

The sky was clear on Sunday and the WTCC's Japanese round finally had a dry race for the first time in four years! But the dry surfaces didn't mean a quiet race. As the rolling start procedure for Race 1 duly progressed, the red signals went off just before the field crossed the control line and all cars were released for racing. They used the full width of pit straight and headed into Turn 1 but, nearby the pit exit, Nykjar who started from the eighth grid made contact with Dahlgren. The Volvo spun and was sent off to green on the inside, resulting in premature retirement after heavily hitting the guard rails.

After a few moments, Tarquini's spin caused a multi-car pileup between Turn 1 and 2. The victims of this incident included Tom Coronel and, when the dust settled, three manufacturer's Chevrolets were leading the race in a 1-2-3 formation well ahead of the rest of the field.

Because of these two incidents, the Safety Car was required to come out. Muller led the field and his teammates, Menu and Huff, followed when the racing resumed on Lap 7 of the 25 lap - the race distance was extended due to the Safety Car period.

Despite driving the sister cars, Muller was a little less satisfied with his car's set up than Menu was. Therefore, the Swiss began to push the reigning champion from behind and managed to overtake him at Turn 1 of Lap 8 by slip streaming on the straightaway before the corner. After that, no one was able to threaten Menu's lead position and he became the first WTCC winner in Suzuka by securing his fourth victory of the season. Muller lost two more places before the checkered flag fell and Huff finished in second, followed by a YOKOHAMA Trophy contender, Nykjar.

Among the local drivers, Taniguchi steered away from the opening lap mess and completed Lap 1 in sixth. After the Safety Car period was over, he displayed a hard battle with Colin Turkington and Mehdi Bennani, both driving BMW 320TCs. While he was overtaken by the Briton later, Taniguchi fended off Bennani's attack and finished in seventh overall - fourth in YOKOHAMA Trophy - which was his best result in this WTCC season. Masaki Kanoh in the DeTeam KK Motorsport's BMW 320 TC ended the race in 12th, ahead of Arai in 13th. Hiroki Yoshimoto in a Sunred SR Leon was involved in the first lap incident and didn't see the checkered flag.

When the time to start Race 2, after a 45 minute interval, closed in, the sky over the track was rapidly covered with thick black clouds. And a very light shower actually wetted the roofs of the cars which were already taking on the grids. Everyone on the grids looked up at the sky and thought about a wet race but, fortunately for most of them, the rain just stopped in a few minutes, so the second race of the day was run on the totally dry tarmac.

At the standing start of Race 2, the rear wheel drive BMWs gained their positions as usual. Thus, Coronel, starting from the second grid, passed by the pole sitting O'Young well before Turn 1 and led the field. To make things worse for O'Young, he was hit by Tarquini from behind at the entry of the first corner and spun off, resulting in ending his race early in the gravel bed. The Italian driver was given a drive through penalty for causing the avoidable contact and retired from the race later probably due to damage on his car from the contact.

With Coronel leading the race, two Chevrolets of Muller and Huff followed but the car running in fourth was Dahlgren's Volvo which had been repaired from a heavy damage suffered in the first race and was surprisingly on the grid for Race 2, thanks to the team's amazing job. On Lap 7, the Swede began to put heavy pressure on Huff and the Chevrolet driver was force to defend the position by weaving the car on the pit straight. Dahlgren continued to push Huff between Turn 1 and 2 but the Briton endured the attack.

On Lap 10, Muller managed to come abreast of Coronel between Turn 2 and 3 but the leader didn't yield an inch and the fact that overtaking was quite difficult on this Suzuka East Circuit helped the BMW driver a lot. After that, the leading pack remained unchanged for a while until Muller made a final attempt and began to close the gap with the leader on the penultimate lap. But his attack at the last corner was fended off by Coronel who eventually claimed his second victory in Japan since the win at Okayama in 2008.

The race for YOKOHAMA Trophy was won by Nykjar again, so he made a big leap in the championship point standings and is now in third in the title battle. All Japanese drivers received the checkered flag this time, as Taniguchi finished in 14th, Arai in 15th, Kanoh in 16th and Yoshimoto in 17th.

"The wear rate of the tires was less than expected and there was a good margin even after running through the race distance. We were worrying that front wheel drive cars might be forced to slow down in the closing stage of the races but, in fact, there was no such problem at all. Some of the teams including Chevrolet had opted for the car set up that would reduce the tire wear by putting more camber angles for example. But races today confirmed that these tires would last long enough even in the Japanese circuits which have relatively abrasive surfaces."

"The venue of the next round, Shanghai Tianma Circuit, is very technical race track and almost like a gymkhana course, I would say. The surfaces are a little rough and bumpy but, as for the tires, there will be no problem at all. We also have a plenty of data and experience on that particular track because it is a venue of the Chinese Touring Car Championship round and the ADVAN tires are the series' sole specified rubbers. So we don't have any concern about it."