Early World Touring Car Championship leader Yvan Muller admits he was surprised to covert his pole position into a relatively easy lights-to-flag victory in the first race of the season at Curitiba after being worried about the durability of his tyres.
Having revealed concerns about the excessive tyre wear of his diesel-powered SEAT Leon following qualifying, Muller was able to take advantage of having team-mates Rickard Rydell and Gabriele Tarquini as a buffer between himself and the faster BMWs.
Indeed, while the SEATs showed impressive pace early on in the race, they struggled to maintain that over the course of the 16 laps race distance. Nonetheless, precision driving, coupled to a superior straight-line speed, enabled the Frenchman to start his season in the most convincing way possible.
"I wasn't expecting to keep my position for the whole race for several reasons: the temperature went up very quickly and the weather wasn't in our favour,” Muller, whose fifth place in the second race means he holds a single point lead over Tarquini in the standings, said.
“Also the lap times of the
BMW showed they were very consistently quick, and it was hard. It wasn't easy at all because any small mistake could have caused the end, so we had attack all the way through."
![Yvan Muller - SEAT Sport SEAT Leon TDI [pic credit: FIA WTCC]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/412983.jpg)
