Andy Priaulx scored his fourth World Touring Car win of the season after claiming a comfortable lights-to-flag win in a race marred by two massive crashes at the same point on the Curitiba circuit in Brazil.
Priaulx's win is a good save for
BMW on a circuit where they struggled for much of the weekend, with the Brit converting his pole position into a win ahead of Gianni Morbidelli and Alex Zanardi in a race not short of excitement.
From the start, Priaulx used his rear-wheel drive supremacy off the line to dive into the first corner with a comfortable lead from James Thompson, the SEAT getting an excellent start from fourth on the grid to beat Morbidelli out of the second corner.
Having seen a rather conservative first event with the drivers keeping relatively line astern through the 14 lap race, the dozens of cars dodging in and out of the slipstream down the long home straight into the tight first corner at the end of the first lap suggested this would be a somewhat more eventful encounter.
Not that that worried Priaulx who was extending his lead over Morbidelli, the Italian managing to get his on form Alfa Romeo past Thompson on the second lap. Just behind, race one podium winner Augusto Farfus Jr. was pulling a similar move on Rickard Rydell to jump into fourth place.
However, their races would last no longer than a further few corners when Farfus ran wide out of the hairpin and as he recovered, clipped the Swede's Leon as he tried to re-pass, sending Rydell into the tyre wall and giving Farfus' Alfa Romeo a rather unflattering nose job with most of the front splitter removed. The Brazilian would later retire his heavily damaged 156.
Their incident though kick started a flurry of activity just behind as several drivers disputed the same piece of tarmac, culminating in race one winner Jordi Gene being shoved off the track at the exit of turn two by Duncan Huisman. With several drivers delayed, the run down to turn three was frantic as those from behind surged forward to gain momentum.
