After seeing the total domination by the reigning champion, Yvan Muller, who had scored a double in the season opener at Monza fortnight ago, the 2012 FIA World Touring Car Championship visited Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia in Spain for the second round of the series.

The Spanish round had been held in September, as the final meeting of the championship's European leg, for the past two years. However, as a result of the major reshuffle of the calendar this year, the date for this event has moved to the beginning of April. Thanks to the mild climate of Valencia and fine weather throughout the race weekend, the air temperature during daytime stayed around 20 degree Celsius and it was warm enough for people to go out in short sleeves.

Even in the qualifying session on Saturday, the local spectators enthusiastically cheered the leading SEAT drivers, such as Gabriele Tarquini and Aleksei Dudukalo. As you may know, SEAT is originally a Spanish car manufacturer, although it is now a subsidiary of Volkswagen Group, so there was a good reason for the Spaniards to cheer them.

Answering the Spanish fans' expectations, Tarquini set the fastest time in Q1 and Dudukalo also safely made his way to Q2 by placing himself in third at the end of Q1.

During the 12 car battle for the pole position, the Italian who carried the SEAT fans' hopes managed to further reduced his best time in Q1 by 0.342 second and registered 1'42"591 but his next and final attempt to better it was unsuccessful, as he ran wide. In this section, the Chevrolet's ace Muller clocked 1'42"228 at his last qualifying lap and denied Tarquini's hope for the second consecutive pole position.

Dudukalo finished Q2 in eighth but he had a tense moment after that, as his SEAT Leon caught fire while it was parked at Parc Ferme. But, thanks to the prompt actions to control the situation, the car's damage was minimal and the Russian driver could join the field on the starting grids after some repair work.

The Sunday in Valencia was beautifully sunny and the rolling start for Race 1 - 13 laps - got underway under the bright sunlight.

On the long pit straight of the counterclockwise race track, Muller sat on the pole position on the outside, with Tarquini alongside of him. When the red signals went off, Tarquini looked to make the better getaway than anyone else and he actually got a few feet ahead of the pole sitter before they reached the first corner. But Muller didn't give way and kept the lead position when the field went through Turn 1.

After that, however, the reigning champion marched with dignity and pulled away from the rest of the field. The gap with Tarquini at the end of Lap 1 was already 1.328 seconds and it consistently grew to 4.443 seconds in the next six laps. And there was no drama on Muller's virtually solitary race until he crossed the finish line with a 6.988 second margin. When the third race of the series ended, he was still the only race winner in the new season.

Second place was fought by Tarquini and Tom Coronel in a BMW 320 TC. The Dutchman started the race from the third grid, despite that his car had needed to replace a driveshaft just before the start of Q1 and he was the last one to get in the track for the session in which he clocked the fourth fastest time.

Until the middle stage of the race, Coronel put heavy pressure on Tarquini and a few contacts didn't stop him but he had to restrain it after the black and white flag - meaning a warning against ungentlemanly conduct - was given to him. Nevertheless, he managed to defend his position against the threat of two Chevrolet drivers behind him, Rob Huff and Alan Menu. His third place finish meant the drivers of three different manufacturers, Chevrolet, SEAT and BMW, shared the podium for the first time in ages.

To his disappointment, Dudukalo was forced to retire due to a suspension problem. But another SEAT driver, Pepe Oriola, had a great race. Starting from the remarkable fourth grid, the 17 year old youngster lost two positions to the two Chevrolet factory drivers, Huff and Menu, but wasn't threatened by Norbert Michelisz, who was his direct competition in the YOKOHAMA Trophy class, throughout the race and finished in sixth overall. For the class winner of Race 1 at Monza, this was the second YOKOHAMA Trophy win of the season and now Oriola seemed to cement his position as one of leading contender for the trophy.

The weather stayed fine and the time to start Race 2 came. The climate was very comfortable - the air temperature at 20.6 degrees Celsius, the surface at 39.4 and the humidity at just 30% - and the spectators were well warmed up by the drifting performance using a Nissan 240SX during the intermission.

For the second race of the day, Stefano D'Aste, who was third in the YOKOHAMA Trophy standings, sat on the pole position, followed by Menu and Dudukalo.

When the red signals blacked out at the standing start for Race 2, the entire field roared toward the first corner but Dudukalo's SEAT Leon was the only exception because he made a mistake at that important moment. Fortunately, this didn't cause any serious accident, as Michelisz, who was just behind him on the grids, and other drivers steered clear of the Russian's almost stranded car. By contrast, Coronel made a great start from the eighth grid and moved up to fourth when he exited Turn 1.

The early leader was D'Aste and Menu followed. Coronel gained one more position at Turn 3 of Lap 2 and was now in third. Menu gradually closed the gap with D'Aste and made a move on Lap 6 but he hit the side of the Italian's BMW when he tried to squeeze his car into the narrow space, which caused D'Aste to almost lose control of his car. Fearing a possible penalty for taking advantage of the contact, the Swiss stepped back and kept his position for the time being.

Then on his second attempt on the next lap, Menu came abreast of the race leader at the exit of Turn 1 and finally took over the lead position on Turn 2. D'Aste didn't have enough resilience to hit back and further lost a position to Coronel two laps later. During the final few laps, the Dutchman reduced the gap with Menu to less than a second but couldn't be a real threat to the Chevrolet driver. Thus, last year's Macau winner claimed his first victory of the new season.

Despite being beaten by two veterans, D'Aste secured the YOKOHAMA Trophy class win by finishing third overall. Immediately after parking his car at Parc Ferme under the podium, the Italian expressed his joy with lively body language and was congratulated by not only his team members but Menu and Coronel as well.

After finishing Race 1 in 12th, James Nash driving the sole Ford Focus S2000 TC was running in 11th in the second race but had to retire as a result of the accident on Lap 9. Since Ford has a production facility of Focus road cars in the suburbs of the city of Valencia, it must be disappointing for people concerned in the American manufacturer which newly joined the championship this year.

Although it isn't as fast as Monza which was the venue of the season opener this year, the cars reached pretty high speed at the end of Circuit Ricardo Tormo's long pit straight. As a result, the braking for Turn 1 can be quite hard, which is a severe test for the tires. On top of this, as the design of curbs in this track allows drivers to ride over them, the tires have to endure the impact of hitting the curbs during the races here.

On the other hand, the cars has become faster in lap times, mainly because of the stronger power and torque produced by 1600cc turbo charged engines.

The ADVAN racing tires, however, didn't experience any problems during the race weekend in Valencia, even under those tough conditions for tires and it proved once again the Japanese rubber's ability to cope with the faster cars and the harder battle between them. Providing the excellent controllability and toughness, the ADVAN racing tires are an integral part of WTCC, the fascinating championship which is often described as 'a combat sport on a race track.'