The 2012 World Touring Car Championship came back to Europe after the Moroccan round in the African Continent a fortnight ago. The next stop was the new addition to the calendar, Slovakia Ring, in Slovakia, which hosted the fourth round - the championship's seventh and eighth races. The relatively long 5.922m race track, which had just become in service in 2009, includes several middle to high speed corners and it boasts a plenty of track width because it had been built to the latest safety standards. Therefore, with the WTCC cars, one could expect many battles and overtaking almost everywhere on the track.

It was quite interesting to see who would be the first to find out the best way to drive around this circuit, but in the qualifying session on Saturday, some of the YOKOHAMA Trophy contenders performed very well, beating even the factory Chevrolets that have been on a winning streak since the season opener. In Q1, Pepe Oriola, the promising youngster who was leading the YOKOHAMA Trophy contention, in the Tuenti Racing's SEAT Leon WTCC clocked the fastest time in style. James Nash was second overall and his Ford Focus S2000 TC was the fastest of the manufacturers' cars, followed by the three factory Chevrolets. As for the BMW drivers, Norbert Michelisz in eighth, Stefano D'Aste in ninth and Albert Cerqui in tenth all made their way into Q2 but Tom Coronel narrowly missed it as he finished the session in lowly 13th.

But Michelisz then became the only driver who set the time under 2'13" in Q2 and secured his first ever pole position in WTCC. As Aleksei Dudukalo followed with his SEAT Leon WTCC, two YOKOHAMA Trophy contenders sat on the front row grids for Race 1. The third grid went to the 50 year old veteran Gabriele Tarquini. Among the Chevrolet drivers, Yvan Muller was in sixth, Robert Huff in seventh and Alain Manu, who maintains a remarkable winning rate at the new venues, was to start the race from the ninth grid.

Under clear skies, the air temperature rose as high as 30 degrees Celsius on Sunday and Race 1 got under way in front of 25,000 spectators. Tarquini managed to get a very good acceleration from the second row at the rolling start. As the Italian squeezed his Leon into the space between Michelisz on the inside and Dudukalo on the opposite side, the three cars entered the first corner abreast of each other! When the field went through the corner, Tarquini found himself running in second, followed by his Lukoil Racing teammate.

But D'Aste who qualified in tenth made an even better getaway and he was running in fourth when he exited Turn 1, thanks to choosing the right path in the crowded pack immediately after the start. On the other hand, the two Ford drivers ended their races even before completing the opening lap due to Chilton driving his car off the course and Nash damaging his car in a crash. Huff also went off the track on the lap and lost a lot of ground.

On Lap 3, just before entering the in-field section, Michelisz and Tarquini made physical contact, which caused the race leader to run wide. And this was enough for the two Lukoil liveried SEATs to get ahead of the Hungarian's BMW 320 TC in succession. Now Tarquini was leading the racel, having his teammate Dudukalo in tow.

Michelisz put heavy pressure on Dudukalo in attempt to recover on the next lap and tried to squeeze his car to the inside of almost every corner but to no avail. Instead, he was surprised by Muller's attack from behind and spun as a result of slight contact between them. Michelisz fell back further but Muller also lost a ground because he was given a drive through penalty for this avoidable collision, so neither of them gained from this incident.

After the half-way point of the race, the two Lukoil cars gradually pulled away from the rest of the field. When they entered into the final lap, Taruquini had a comfortable 4.186 second gap with his teammate and Dudukalo also had a 1.385 second cushion to Menu running in third. And the Italian completed the lap without a hitch to claim his first win of the season. Although Menu kept a place on the podium for Chevrolet, this was the first time in ages that SEAT drivers were the stars of the race and its podium cerebration.

While Dudukalo finishing second overall to secure the YOKOHAMA Trophy class win, the other class contenders also performed well and took from fourth through to ninth overall. Among the championship leaders, D'Aste finished in third in the class - fifth overall - but, in sharp contrast, Oriola damaged his tires when he briefly went off the track and ended the race in lowly 12th in the class.

After a relatively short intermission, the field was ready for the start of Race 2. The pole position was given to D'Aste and he was followed by Menu, Oriola, Huff, Muller, Tiago Monteiro in one of two Sunred Leon 1.6T and Tarquini on the grids.

D'Aste kept the lead position at the first corner but immediately came under relentless attacks from the factory Chevrolet trio led by the fast starting Huff from the fourth grid.

Huff was quick to pass D'Aste at Turn 2 and took over the lead position. Then the Wiechers-Sport entered BMW driver slightly collided with Menu who dove into the inside of him when they were entering the first corner of the in-field section. While D'Aste was trying to regain control of his car, the two Chevrolet and Tarquini's SEAT got ahead of the struggling Italian. At the same time, Muller moved up to second by getting around his Swiss teammate.

Now the Chevrolet trio was in the usual 1-2-3 formation but it was soon denied by the winner of Race 1, Tarquini, as he managed to overtake Menu on Lap 2. After this position change, the Swiss had a broken wheel due to contact with the other car and forced to end his race prematurely on Lap 3.

The top three steadily pulled away from the rest of the field and the race effectively became the three-way battle for the victory. Even when they entered the final lap, Tarquini didn't stop his brave effort to gain one - or possibly two - more position(s) until the checkered flag fell, so he kept putting heavy pressure on Muller and actually became side by side with him a few times. The Frenchman once almost spun because of slight contact between them but his reflexes were still good enough to catch the car before it became uncontrollable and managed to defend his position. And this battle for second clearly helped Huff to concentrate on his own drive and he was able to secure his awaited first win of the season.

The YOKOHAMA Trophy class was won by Oriola who avenged the disappointing defeat in Race 1 by finishing in fifth overall. The class winner of Race 1, Dudukalo, and D'Aste ended the race in the opposite end of the field, which was just as contrasting as the first race of the day but their positions were utterly reversed.

The WTCC visited Slovakia Ring for the first time and found that one of the distinctive features of this track is its unusual asphalt paving. Specifically, the size of aggregate in the asphalt varies very much and it includes even sand granules that are just apparent to the naked eye. The gripping power of the surfaces themselves is relatively low.

Since the surfaces aren't grippy, the tires don't bite it very well and the cars are prone to slide a lot when running on the track. This usually accelerates the tire wear and, in this particular race meeting, the right hand side front tires of front wheel drive cars suffered most. But the ADVAN racing tires didn't experience any problem over the weekend which featured two 10 lap races and, again, proved its consistent performance on this distinctive track surfaces.

The Slovakian round was favored by good weather. When Race 1 started, the air/surfaces temperatures were 30/40 degrees Celsius and they stayed at 31/40 at the time of the start of Race 2. So it was quite hot but no excessive degradation of tire performance was observed. It could be said that the ADVAN racing tires again served well as a reliable partner for the drivers who displayed the interesting battles on this new race track for them.