Porto 2007: Chevy's Porto 'blue wash'.

Sunday, 8th July 2007

Alain Menu heads dominant Chevrolet 1-2-3 in first ever WTCC race round streets of Porto.

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With debris strewn across the road at was already a tight turn, the organisers had no alternative but to deploy the safety car, bunching the field up behind Menu in the order Rob Huff, Nicola Larini, Gabriele Tarquini, Tom Coronel, Yvan Muller, Andy Priaulx and Jorg Muller, with Farfus - who remained under investigation for the Zanardi incident to the end - just outside the points positions. Stefano d'Aste's Weichers-Sport BMW headed the depleted privateer runners in eleventh place, with the cushion of Michel Jourdain Jr splitting him from second in class Pierre-Yves Corthals.

Having survived a side-by-side duel with team-mate Huff at the initial green light, which lasted through to turn three before the Briton finally yielded, Menu was confident that he could hold the advantage from a single-file restart, but the Swiss veteran was made to wait - and wait some more - as the clear-up operation dragged on.

With the race extended by two laps, to 13, the signal to restart finally came at the start of lap nine and, while Menu and Huff made good their escape, the more heavily laden Larini found his mirrors full of the eager Tarquini. The two Italians ducked and weaved for a couple of corners before the puff went out of Tarquini's challenge, effectively ending the battle for the podium, barring mistakes up front.

Another safety car period briefly threatened when Olivier Thielemans put the second Alfa into the wall approaching turn ten, but the efficient safety crews covered and cleared the damaged 156 with a local yellow, ensuring that the enthusiastic crowd got some extended racing for their money.

With the Chevys apparently comfortable out front and the chasing SEAT holding station in places four, five and six, attention switched to the battle for the final couple of points. Priaulx, still winless in 2007, held sway over Muller, but it wasn't for wont of the German trying, the Team Germany driver swiping the right-hand mirror from his car in the tight final chicane.