After an eight week long summer break, the 2012 FIA World Touring Car Championship swung into action again. Two out of four rounds in the season's second half are the first time venues for WTCC and, as the first of them, Sonoma Raceway in California, USA, hosted the ninth round - the 17th and 18th races - of the championship. This was the WTCC's first visit to the North America ever, since the championship had been founded in 2005.

For the two American marques, Chevrolet and Ford - the latter is the new addition to the championship this year; this was the first ever "home" race. Sonoma has hosted NASCAR and Indy races and has the choice of several course layouts using or not using short cuts to adapt to each category's characteristics. For this particular event, the longest 4.032km layout was used.

Since the championship had never visited to the circuit before, an additional test session was held on Friday. Alex MacDowall in one of the bamboo-engineering run Chevrolet Cruzes was the fastest man in this session, followed by Pepe Oriola and Fernando Monje both driving Tuenti Racing Team's SEAT Leons. Thus the YOKOHAMA Trophy contenders took the top three slots on the first day.

But the situation didn't continue on Saturday. In the first free practice, Yvan Muller in a factory Chevrolet set the fastest time and Tom Chilton followed in his Ford Focus, which delighted the American fans. But the situation changed again in the second session that saw the SEAT drivers being dominant, as Gabriele Tarquini was the first with Tiago Monteiro and Tom Boardman finishing it in third and fourth. Although Muller was still in second, making the prediction for the races wasn't easy at this time.

The qualifying session on Saturday afternoon firstly decided the top 12 competitors in QF1 and only those 12 drivers were allowed to move on to QF2 as usual. And, at the end of the session, the pole position was in the hands of Alain Menu who had a good track record in the first time venues in the past. While Tarquini stopped the Chevrolet domination by taking second, Muller and Robert Huff secured the third and fourth grids for Race 1. After the top four, Monteiro who was in seventh in QF2 was the only other manufacturer driver in the top 12. This meant as many as seven YOKOHAMA Trophy drivers made their ways to QF2, with Norbert Michelisz being the fastest among them and ending the session in fifth.

When the race was about to start on Sunday, the track was dry and the air/surface temperatures were 28/32 degrees Celsius. While it had been overcast during the morning hours, sunshine broke through the clouds by mid-day, so one could feel the return of summer. As the cars took their grids, a helicopter flew over them to send a sky diver who made a jump with his parachute, trailing colored smoke behind him, which was the very American way to liven up the event. Then the first ever WTCC race in US - the season's 17th race - got underway at 12:20 p.m.

With Menu at the front, the field completed the formation lap and made a clean rolling start when the red signals went off. On the upslope approach to Turn 1, however, Tarquini got better acceleration and came abreast of the pole sitting Chevrolet driver as they were turning into the corner. They didn't give way to each other and came to Turn 2 side-by-side but they made contact there, which resulted in pushing the Italian off the track towards the outside of Turn 2. The SEAT driver fell down to fifth in the aftermath of this incident.

At Turn 3, several more cars in the mid field had collisions and went off the track but it only required the yellow flag for that section and no intervention of the Safety Car. The race went on but, with Tarquini being no longer in the leading pack, the top three slots were now fought between the factory Chevrolet teammates. On Lap 3, Muller in second briefly put pressure on the race leading Menu but the blue Chevrolets continued to lead the field like a three car train, keeping a very close formation.

But, on Lap 4, Menu got into trouble. The Swiss's car started to show somewhat strange behavior at Turn 3 and he had to give way to Muller and Huff at Turn 6. While the track surfaces in that section were a bit dusty due to the previous incidents, it was apparent that something was wrong with his car. Eventually, he was forced to come in the pit and lost a few laps to repair the steering failure before rejoining the race.

Huff kept following to Muller closely until the race came to the closing stage and then everybody was watching for the Briton's final attack. However, on Lap 12 of 13 lap race, Oriola parked his car on the pit straight due to a mechanical problem. Because of this, the last sector of the track became yellow-flagged and the situation significantly reduced the chance for Huff to find his way to overtake the teammate. Thus Muller claimed his ninth victory of the season and became the first in the history to win a WTCC race in US.

Norbert Michelisz won the YOKOHAMA Trophy class, after starting from the first in the class, by easily pulling away from MacDowall and Franz Engstler. He finished in third overall and extended the championship point lead against Oriola to 17 points, as the young Spaniard had to retire the race and was scoreless.

The intermission after Race 1 was just about 30 minutes and it was a bit too short for Lukoil Racing Team's crew to finish the repair work on Aleksei Dudukalo's car that had been damaged in the accident in the first race. As a result, the unfortunate Russian was forced to start Race 2 from the pit lane, instead of the 12th grid that he was supposed to take.

Since the first 10 cars of QF2 were placed on the grids in reversed order, Stefano D'Aste sat on the pole position for Race 2, followed by Mehdi Bennani and Engstler. This meant, interestingly, the top three drivers on the grids were driving BMWs which have a theoretical advantage in a standing start.

When the red signals blacked out, the theory was proved right by none of the top three cars but by Michelisz's another BMW which rocketed from the sixth grid. Immediately after the start, the Hungarian steered to the open space on the outside and got ahead of both MacDowall and Monteiro before they entered into Turn 1. Now he was in fourth.

Behind them, Huff and Muller, who started from seventh and eighth grids, began their pursuit. They also passed MacDowall and Monteiro soon after the start and overtook Michelisz during the opening lap. And at the front, D'Aste made an unlikely mistake and went off the track after a spin. As a result, the Italian handed the position of race leader to Bennani before completing the first lap.

Tarquini and Monteiro were fighting for sixth. Going down the pit straight side by side, they entered the second lap and Monteiro got ahead of Tarquini at Turn 1. But the veteran Italian displayed his masterly race craft on the next lap and regained the sixth by taking the smallest chance and diving into the inside of the Portuguese.

On Lap 4, the race leading Bennani spun on his own, as if doing a replay of D'Aste's mishap a few laps prior, and went off the track. Now Engstler was the new race leader and the factory Chevrolet duo - Muller in front of Huff - was pursuing him.

Muller made an attack on Engstler at Turn 6 on the next lap but the move resulted in contact between them, putting the German into a spin. The Frenchman and Huff now moved up to first and second. From Lap 6 to 8, however, the Safety Car came out to remove the Bennani's halted car and, during this period, a drive through penalty was given to Muller for causing the avoidable collision with Engstler. After the racing resumed, the reigning champion had no choice but to serve the penalty and handed the lead position to his teammate.

Although Michelisz and Tarquini weren't far behind the new leader, they couldn't be a real threat for Huff during the remaining laps of the race. With the maximum points from Race 2 in his pocket, Huff now had 315 points which was equal to Muller who ended the race in 14th and the Briton became the joint championship leader after this US round.

Michelisz's consistent drive throughout the race led to the second YOKOHAMA Trophy class victory of the day and he got on the overall podium again - one place higher than the third that he claimed in Race 1. With this class win, the Hungarian further extended the championship lead against Oriola who finished Race 2 in sixth.

While the true grip level of Sonoma's track surfaces were comparable to those of European circuits, the Californian track was generally dusty because of its surroundings and, therefore, the actual grip level became relatively low. The characteristics of the track didn't put heavy load on tires, so I wouldn't say it's the toughest track for tires to tackle with. But the wear rate was quite high, especially on the inner half of the tire tread. The possible reasons for this were that the track was dusty and hence slippery and that, due to a 50m height difference, there were a number of uphill corners.

The height difference was one of the main features of this track. Interestingly, this influenced the tactics of the competitors to a certain extent, as the rear wheel drive BMWs had a slight advantage on the uphill section but Chevrolets were faster in cornering speed, whereas SEATs were consistent in every section because the Spanish cars were relatively lighter in weight.

When Race 1 was about to start, the air temperature was at 28 degrees Celsius and it rose to 30 when Race 2 began. In fact, the air/surface temperatures were a little higher than predicted but, in comparison with the other mid-summer races in the calendar, the temperatures here never reached to the extreme level.

The spectators at the circuit rather felt comfortable about the weather. The American fans seemed to enjoy the races very much, loudly cheering for the leading drivers every lap with a lot of bear, hamburgers and French fries beside them. All in all, it was safe to say the WTCC's first ever US round was successful.