Without taking a rest after the Slovakian round, the FIA World Touring Car Championship headed to Hungary for the back-to-back race weekend at Hungaroring. This was only the second time for the championship to visit this Grand Prix circuit in Eastern Europe.

The two 30 minute practice sessions on Saturday, prior to the qualifying, were led by the current championship leader and Chevrolet's ace, Yvan Muller, and Gabriele Tarquini who had just scored his first win of the season in Slovakia.

The top three drivers in Q1 of the qualifying session were Muller, his teammate Robert Huff and Tarquini. Behind them, the other nine - Alain Menu in another Chevrolet, Tiago Monteiro in a Sunred Leon, the local boy Norbert Michelisz in a BMW 320 TC, Darryl O'Young, Franz Engstler, the YOKOHAMA Trophy championship leader Pepe Oriola, Mehdi Bennani, Alex MacDowall and James Nash - made their way into Q2.

Muller set 1'54"503 in the early minutes of Q2 and eventually no one could beat him. Huff's best lap time was 0.267 second shy of his teammate's but still good enough to secure the front row for Race 1. Tarquini looked to take the third grid but it was denied by Menu's best time, 1'54"993, which he clocked in the final minutes of the session. Thus, the top three slots were dominated by the factory Chevrolet drivers.

On Sunday, Hungaroring was favored by good weather and the temperatures were 20/37 (air/track surface) degrees Celsius when Race 1 - the ninth race of the series - was about to start. After a formation lap led by the marshal car, the race got underway when the red signals went off. Starting from the front row, Muller and Huff entered into the first corner side by side but the reigning champion kept his position by holding his line on the inside. At the same time, Tarquini tried to get abreast of them from the outside of Huff. But his move was too optimistic and resulted in a premature retirement for damaging his car in physical contact with Huff's Chevrolet.

Behind the leaders, Michelisz got good acceleration from the sixth grid and got ahead of Menu when they were entering into Turn 1. However, the contact with the Swiss caused him tangling with O'Young and going off the track. Consequently, Michelisz lost a lot of ground and O'Young made another collision with Engstler when he got back on the track. Furthermore, the German was hit by Stephano D'Aste who came from behind, so the opening lap was quite eventful to say the least.

Despite turmoil behind them, the leading Chevrolet trio went on without a hitch. When they completed Lap 1, the three blue Chevrolets formed a 1-2-3 like a train and the last of them, Menu, had a more than one second gap with Bennani who was running in fourth.

The trio was simply untouchable. Although Menu tried to make a move on Huff on Lap 6 and a few more close moments were seen, Muller gradually pulled away from his teammates and they finished the 12 lap race without changing their position. This was the Frenchman's fifth win and the factory Chevrolet team's third podium domination of the season, repeating the feat they had achieved in Monza and Marrakech.

Bennani drove a smooth race and became the YOKOHAMA Trophy class winner, after steering away from the incidents on the opening lap. The fourth overall was the Moroccan's best result in his WTCC career. The local boy Michelisz made a great recovery from the 11th where he was after the first lap mishap and finished in second in the class, seventh overall, which brought a lot of excitement to his home crowd.

For the standing start of Race 2, the German veteran Engstler sat on the pole position and he was followed by the fellow YOKOHAMA Trophy contenders, Oriola and O'Young, on the grids.

But most of large crowd of spectators at Hungaroring were watching for their compatriot on the fifth grid. When the red signals blacked out, Michelisz steered to the outside to pass O'Young and then he flipped his car to the opposite side to get ahead of Oriola. Building on the momentum, Michelisz immediately attacked Engstler and went into the first corner side by side with the German. To the joy of the Hungarian spectators, it was the local ace who gained the upper hand in this battle, as he managed to keep the inside of the corner.

Now the focus was on the chance for Michelisz's overall victory in the 12 lap race. The outlook was good because the starting position of his main rivals for this race seemed to favor him. Thanks to the reversed grids, the first three rows on the grids were taken by the YOKOHAMA Trophy contenders with the only exception of Monteiro in fourth. Then, Tarquini was in seventh, followed by Menu, Huff and Muller, and it took much longer than usual for those factory drivers to move up the field because the opportunities for overtaking were very limited in Hungaroring. Thus, when they reached to the half way point of the race, at the end of Lap 6, the YOKOHAMA Trophy class drivers, Michelisz, Oriola and Bennani, were still leading the race.

However, Menu was already in fourth on Lap 4 by passing Monteiro and became a serious threat for the top three drivers. In the middle stage of the race, the Swiss imposed huge pressure on Oriola and Bennani and, on Lap 9, overtook both of them in one move when the Moroccan made a costly mistake in the braking for Turn 1. Now Menu was in second and started to reduce the 4.670 second gap with Michelisz at the end of Lap 8. And, when they entered into the final lap, it was cut down to 2.626 seconds.

While the Chevrolet driver's pursuit was spectacular for everyone at the circuit, Michelisz kept his cool until the checkered flag fell and claimed his second overall win in front of the home crowd that cheered him by waving the national flags of Hungary.

The roaring applause from the spectators drowned out the exhaust noise of the cars crossing the finish line one after another. Listening to the anthem of his homeland, the proud winner was smiling brightly on the podium.