After the Japanese round at Suzuka, WTCC headed to mainland China. The championship had already visited there last year but this year the event was run at another race track in the country, Shanghai International Circuit, which is an international-standard race track and is well-known throughout the world as one of the Formula One race venues.

While a little shorter course arrangement was used by making a shortcut, it still has a length of 4,603m including the 1.2km straightaway. Because the circuit has both high speed sections and technical sections together with large undulation, there are a lot of overtaking points and exciting races were expected.

The drivers did a look-around the track by walk or bicycle, as is their custom, at the beginning of the race weekend. And after that, many drivers made positive comments on the track, saying it looked exciting and fun to drive.

There was one test session on Friday, plus the usual two practice sessions on Saturday in the weekend. The fastest driver in the test session was Alex MacDowall and a longtime absentee from WTCC, Colin Turkington, set the fastest time in the first practice session. Both of them drove non-factory Chevrolet Cruzes in this event.

The fight for drivers' championship crown was so fierce in the closing stage of the season. Indeed, the two factory Chevrolet drivers, Yvan Muller and Robert Huff, had headed to the Japanese round in a tie in the point standings and had still been in a tie when they left Suzuka! But their teammate Alain Menu put his name on the top of the time sheet for Free Practice 2 because he has always been very good at the first time venue and was willing to show his enthusiasm for the title, although his chance was rather slim.

The Swiss carried the momentum to the qualifying session. He easily cut through Q1 with the second fastest time and then secured the pole position for Race 1, as he had done in the previous Suzuka round. Muller sat on the second grid and the YOKOHAMA Trophy championship leader, Norbert Michelisz took the third.

Race 1 - the 21st race of the series - got underway with rolling start procedures as usual. Menu and Muller went into the first corner abreast of each other, the former staying on the inside and the latter on the outside. But Huff made a better start and, after passing by Michelisz immediately, got ahead of Muller on their way from Turn 1 to Turn 2, taking a clever line just behind Menu.

Soon after that, the Frenchman made contact with Michelisz, resulting in a spin in Turn 3. Things went from bad to worse for Muller, as his car had substantial damage on the right rear suspension from the contact and he was forced to end his race prematurely. His early retirement was a big upset, of course, particularly in terms of the championship battle.

The drama in the opening lap didn't end here. The closest rival of the championship leader, Pepe Oriola, also made physical contact with Turkington and was effectively dropped out of contention.

Getting through the first lap mayhem unscathed, Stephano D'Aste who was the overall winner of Race 2 in the Japanese round managed to gain a few positions during the lap. Although there was already a certain gap between him and the leading Chevrolets of Menu and Huff, the Italian was steadily pulling away from Tom Coronel and Gabriele Tarquini, in fourth and fifth respectively, and was comfortably running in third.

On Lap8, Tiago Monteiro in the sole Honda Civic overtook Fredy Barth in a SEAT Leon, after putting pressure for a while. The pair cleared Turn 2 which is tight and deep right hander in tandem and the Portuguese took the inside when they turned to the opposite direction for the next left hander, Turn 3, as the SEAT driver went slightly wide there. Now Monteiro moved up to seventh.

While some of the drivers in the midfield were busy swapping their positions, the top two firmly secured their leading positions in the second half of the race. And the pole sitting Menu crossed the finish line first, without giving any chance to his teammate. Huff finished in second and D'Aste in third, which meant the YOKOHAMA Trophy contender got on the overall podium again, following to his overall victory in Japan.

For the second race of the day that employs standing start procedures, the pole position was given to Coronel and Tarquini sat on the second grid. MacDowall and Oriola took the second row with their front wheel drive cars, followed by D'Aste and Turkington on the third row.

As usual, the cars to watch were the rear wheel drive BMWs because they have a theoretical advantage in acceleration from stand still when the load shifts to rear wheels that are driving wheels of BMWs. When the red signals blacked out, D'Aste and Michelisz rocketed from the fifth and eighth grid respectively and tried to cut through to the front of the field by using the space between the cars on the front rows. Then the two BMW drivers took different ways and the Italian went for the inside of the track.

Coronel led the field when they entered the first corner, closely followed by D'Aste. Michelisz also tried to go down the same path with the Italian but he was beaten by MacDowall at the entry of Turn 1 and forced to go off the track, as there was no space left for him.

The field was dreadfully crowded until they reached to Turn 3 but surprisingly there was no crash or heavy accident during the opening lap. At the end of Lap 1, the two BMW was still leading, with Coronel ahead of D'Aste. However, they were followed by the factory Chevrolet drivers, Menu in third, Muller in fourth and Huff in fifth, who were preparing for their relentless attack.

Menu opened fire at the BMW duo by overtaking D'Aste on Lap 2 and the Swiss's teammates followed his path on the next lap. Then the Chevrolet drivers started to put pressure on Coronel and Menu got ahead of the Dutchman at Turn 3 on Lap 5. Coronel was powerless in resisting the same things happening two more times and now the three factory Chevrolet Cruzes formed the leading pack by themselves.

After that, the 1-2-3 formation seemed to be deja vu of the previous Japanese round but one thing was different. The Shanghai International Circuit has a plenty of overtaking points, so they had more freedom to exchange positions by competing with each other. Their battles were the highlight of the second half of the race because it was the fight between the only three remaining candidates for the drivers' championship crown.

But the fight ended in a bizarre way. On Lap 8, Muller's attempt to dive to the inside of Menu while they were under braking resulted in failure and he couldn't avoid hitting the teammate from behind. As a result, the Swiss was almost spinning and Muller also lost momentum, which gave Huff an opportunity to pass both of them in one move. And the Briton took it, of course.

Huff eventually finished the race in first, followed by Muller and Menu. But the incident between the latter two was investigated by the race stewards after the race and a 30 second time penalty was added to Muller's race finishing time. This sent him back to lowly 13th in the final result.

With Muller gaining no point in both races in Shanghai, the championship point standings saw a significant change. While Huff was still on the top of table but now in solo with 390 points, Menu moved up to second with 355 and Muller went down to third with 349, being 41 points shy of the championship leader.

D'Aste won the YOKOHAMA Trophy class once again by finishing in fourth overall - after Muller's penalty. The order of the point standings here didn't changed after the Chinese round but the point gaps among the top three became much closer, as the championship leader, Michelisz, had 138 points, followed by Oriola with 126 and D'Aste with 123.