ADVAN / MOTOR SPORTS [WTCC 2012 Round 5 and 6 Morocco]

The FIA World Touring Car Championship arrived in the African Continent, after having two events in Europe, Italian and Spanish rounds. This was the third Moroccan round in the WTCC's history, although the event had been dropped from the calendar last year. The races were held on the temporary street track build in the city of Marrakech and had been truly "survival races," as all of the four races in the past two events had seen intervention of Safety Car because of accidents...

In the early stage of the 2012 season, Chevrolet had swept all four races before the Moroccan round and the reigning champion Yvan Muller had scored three victories out of four. But the other drivers in BMW and SEAT had also taken the podium places in Spain, so the Chevrolet's dominance wasn't assured yet. As another factor that might impact the situation, the compensation weight handicap was applied from this round. Therefore, the main topic in the qualifying session was how it would affect the performance of each of the car models.

The qualifying session on Saturday saw another Chevrolet domination but the fastest driver both in Q1 and Q2 was Alain Menu this time. He was followed, in Q2, by his teammate Robert Huff, Tom Coronel and Muller. The other remarkable drivers who made their ways into Q2 were Tom Chilton in eighth and James Nash in tenth, both driving Ford Focus S2000 TC, the newcomer to the championship this year.

Gabriele Tarquini in a SEAT Leon WTCC ended the Q2 session in fifth but his car was found to be underweighted at the post qualifying scrutineering. So he was removed from the qualifying result but was allowed to join the race from the bottom end of the top 12 grids.

The sky was overcast on Sunday. The colorful banners all around the paddock and grand stand flew in a light wind which might have felt a little humid and seemed to suggest the chance of rain. Fortunately, however, the rain didn't come throughout the day and the rolling start for Race 1 duly got underway.

To nobody's surprise, there were a few incidents on the opening lap. As Coronel's acceleration at the start wasn't very good, Muller and Pepe Oriola, who were on the fourth and fifth grids respectively, got ahead of the Dutchman. Behind them, the local ace Mehdi Bennani made physical contact with Nash at Turn 1 and, as a result, the Briton's Ford was badly damaged and halted on the track.

At the front end of the field, the three factory Chevrolets formed a 1-2-3 led by the pole sitting Menu. To make up the lost ground at the start, Coronel pursued them very hard but, unfortunately, was hit from behind by Alex McDowell in a Bamboo-engineering run Chevrolet at Turn 5, resulting in losing more ground...

To clear up debris and Nash's stranded Focus, the Safety Car had to come out again this time. At the restart after the two laps of Safety Car period, the entire field cleanly went through Turn 1.

Chilton and Stefano D'Aste closely fought for the fifth place during the middle phase of the race. It began with the Ford driver's bold overtaking at the final corner on Lap 4. Watching for an opportunity to hit back, the Italian stayed on the tail of Chilton's Focus but life became harder for him as the double yellow flags were shown at Turn 5, due to a halted car in the run off area, which meant he was taken away one of a very few overtaking point in this street track in Marrakech.

The battle went on lap after lap. D'Aste made a move on Lap 9 and tried to get abreast of Cilton at the entry of Turn 8 to no avail. They ran in tandem through a few more corners, riding over the curbs with two wheels in the air, but eventually the Ford driver had to give way to D'Aste on Lap 10, after putting up stiff resistance. Chilton lost one more position to Franz Engstler on the next lap but his valiant drive and the performance of Focus were noteworthy, especially considering that this was only the third WTCC event for them.

The top three drivers marched on without any mishap until the checkered flag fell. Thus, Chevrolet drivers dominated the podium again, with Menu getting on the highest place. This was the Swiss' back-to-back victory after he won the second race of the Spanish round. As for the YOKOHAMA Trophy class, Oriola took over the fourth place from Coronel immediately after the start and remained in the position until the finish to score his third class win of the season.

After a two hour intermission, came the time to start Race 2 - the sixth race of the championship. As Tarquini was moved back to the 12th grid, the pole position was given to Nash. Tiago Monteiro and Engstler sat on the second and third grid respectively.

At the standing start for Race 2, the cars to watch were of course BMWs that have a natural advantage for this type of start. When the red signals went off, Coronel starting from the eighth grid made a good getaway and tried to pass Oriola and others using the space between those cars and the wall on the left hand side.

In front of Oriola, however, Chilton also steered to the left and Coronel could find no way to get through. Meanwhile, Engstler made a good start from the third grid and got ahead of Monteiro but his acceleration fell short of catching the pole sitting Nash. So the Ford driver went through the first corner as the race leader.

Behind them, the factory Chevrolet drivers were rapidly catching up the leader from their grids on the fourth and fifth rows. After passing D'Aste at Turn 3 of Lap 2, Muller, Huff and Menu began to reel in Monteiro who was running in fourth. At the same corner on the next lap, Muller got ahead of the Portuguese when they were entering the corner and Huff and Menu followed his teammate's path at the exit of it. Then Muller and Huff dove to the inside of Coronel at the final corner on the same lap and overtook him. The Frenchman was then in third.

For the next two laps, the Chevrolet trio launched unrelenting attacks on the early leader Nash and Engstler in second. At the entry for Turn 8 on Lap 4, Muller went through the chicane together with the German, scratching the car's bodies each other and got ahead of him. Shortly after that, Engstler lost his position to Huff. On Lap 5, Muller caught the tail of Nash's Focus at Turn 3 and passed him in the braking area for Turn 4. Now he became the new race leader well before the halfway point of the race.

Then Huff and Menu followed suit by overtaking Nash soon to form the Chevrolet's 1-2-3 just as they did in the first race of the day. And their positions remained unchanged until the finish and the podium domination was repeated.

In the second half of the race, the highlights were the battles of YOKOHAMA Trophy competitors, particularly D'Aste and Oriola. The Italian in fifth overall tried hard to pass Coronel in the same BMW 320 TC. On the other hand, the SEAT driver was running in seventh and aiming at getting ahead of Nash's Ford, so this was a duel between two front wheel drive cars from the American and Spanish marques. Although both trophy contenders weren't able to beat their opponents, the fierce battles that lasted until the finish certainly fascinated the spectators and TV viewers and D'Aste ended the race as the YOKOHAMA Trophy class winner.