NEWS ARCHIVE

Wiechers-Sport’s Mehdi Bennani was deprived of his Race 1 victory in the Independents’ Trophy when the Stewards of the meeting decided to impose a 30-second time penalty on him. The Moroccan driver was punished for cutting a chicane and gaining unfair advantage. Harry Vaulkhard inherited the Independents’ win and one point in the overall classification.

Yvan MULLER: “I didn’t expect this but we were looking after our tyres because we know this track is hard on the front-left. We changed the set up to be more conservative on the tyres. Tom (Coronel) was a bit faster at the end of the straight and first chicane and I was faster in the two Lesmos and Ascari so I just had to close the door at certain places to avoid him passing. It’s a good start to the season and to be the leader after three weekends is great.”

Chevrolet’s Yvan Muller claimed a last lap victory as the lead SEAT León TDI of Danish rookie Michel Nykjær sprung a front-left puncture on the final lap of Race 2. Tom Coronel and Rob Huff completed the podium as Nykjær did not finish the race, pulling off the track at the second chicane.

Andy Priaulx snatched victory in the final corner of the last lap in this afternoon’s first race in Monza ahead of his team-mate Augusto Farfus and Chevrolet’s Rob Huff, who crawled across the line on three wheels. Gabriele Tarquini had been leading from Huff until the final corners of the race however, coming through the Ascari chicane for the final time, Tarquini had a front-left puncture allowing Huff to briefly take the lead.

Argentine Touring Car star Leonel Pernía received the visit of his brothers Mariano and Emiliano today. Leonel is not the only member of the family making a name for himself in International sport, as his brother Mariano currrently plays football in Spain’s first division for Atlético Madrid. Having dual Spanish and Argentine nationality, he was also selected for the Spanish national team to take part in the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

SR-Sport driver Tiago Monteiro posted the 10th fastest lap in today’s qualifying. However he will start from the 15th spot on the grid for tomorrow’s Race 1 at Monza. The Portuguese driver was handed a 5-grid position penalty for repeatedly cutting the first chicane and improving his lap time during the Q1 session.

Augusto FARFUS – pole position: “We were not expecting this weekend to be our best. We were hoping we’d get into Q2 but slipstream really pays a lot. I had a clean lap with no mistakes and thanks to the slipstream from Priaulx ahead I got a great lap time. It doesn’t really show the performance of the BMW as we don’t have the quickest top speed so it’s going to be very hard to keep the place tomorrow in the race.”

Augusto Farfus claimed the first pole position of the season for BMW with a lap time of 2:00.672, one year on from his last pole position at Brno. The Brazilian will line up alongside Chevrolet’s Rob Huff (2:00.697) on the front row with BMW Team RBM fellow driver Andy Priaulx in third (2:00.807). Top rookie Norbert Michelisz (2:01.731) will start eighth overall with bamboo-engineering scoring a 1-2 in the Independents’ class with Darryl O’Young (2:02.186) finishing 12th overall.

Britain’s Rob Huff put Chevrolet on top of the timesheets in Monza with a lap time of 2:01.685 during second practice ahead of Andy Priaulx (2:01.755) and Gabriele Tarquini (2:01.893). After Farfus’ BMW 320si in yesterday’s test and Tarquini’s SEAT León TDI in this morning’s P1 had led a session apiece so far, Chevrolet claimed the top spot with most of the action happening in the final minutes of the session.