The 2009 FIA WTCC Race of Mexico (formally the 2009 FIA WTCC HSBC Race of Mexico) was the second round of the

2009 World Touring Car Championship season 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra a ...

. It was held on 22 March 2009 at the Autódromo Miguel E. Abed near Puebla,

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. It was the fourth running of the

FIA WTCC Race of Mexico The FIA WTCC Race of Mexico was a round of the World Touring Car Championship, held at the Autódromo Miguel E. Abed near the city of Puebla in Mexico. The race was first run in the 2005 season, the first season of the revived series. It was ru ...

. The two races were won by

SEAT Sport Cupra Racing, formerly known as SEAT Sport, is the high-performance motorsport subsidiary of the Spanish automobile manufacturer SEAT, founded in 1985, succeeding the "SEAT Special Vehicles department" which had been formed in 1971 with the mi ...

Rickard Rydell Rickard Rydell (born 22 September 1967) is a retired Swedish racing driver. He won the 1998 British Touring Car Championship, the 2011 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, and has also been a frontrunner in the European/World Touring Car Cham ...

and

Yvan Muller Yvan Muller (born 16 August 1969 in Altkirch, Haut-Rhin) is a French auto racing driver most noted for success in touring car racing. He is a four-time World Touring Car Champion, winning the title in 2008 with SEAT, in 2010 and 2011 with Chevro ...

Background

After the first round of the year in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, defending champion Yvan Muller was tied on points with SEAT Sport teammate

Gabriele Tarquini Gabriele Tarquini (born 2 March 1962) is an Italian racing driver. He participated in 78 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on May 3, 1987. He scored a single championship point, and holds the record for the most failed attempts to qualify. He h ...

at the top of the drivers' championship.

Scuderia Proteam Motorsport Proteam Motorsport is an Italian auto racing team based in Arezzo that was set up by former driver Valmiro Presenzini in 1997. They are best known for their efforts in the FIA World Touring Car Championship. Their time in the WTCC has seen them be ...

Félix Porteiro Félix Porteiro Pérez (born 26 August 1983 in Castellón) is a Spanish racing driver. He competed in GP2 in 2006 and 2007, his best finish was 4th in 2007. Racing career Single-seaters In 2001 Porteiro drove in the Spanish Formula Three Ch ...

was leading the

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...

Independents' Trophy.

Report

Testing and free practice

The test session on Friday saw joint championship leader Yvan Muller go fastest. BMW drivers Augusto Farfus and

Andy Priaulx Andrew Graham Priaulx, MBE ( born 8 August 1974) is a British professional racing driver from Guernsey. In 2019 he raced for Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and Cyan Racing Lynk & Co in the FIA World Tou ...

set the pace early on before SEAT drivers

and Tarquini went quicker. With a minute before the end of the session, Muller set the fastest time. Porteiro was the fastest independent driver in sixth while none of the Chevrolet drivers got into the top ten with

Nicola Larini Nicola Larini (born 19 March 1964) is an Italian racing driver. He participated in 75 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 6 September 1987. He finished second in the tragic 1994 San Marino Grand Prix on a substitute outing for Ferrari, but only s ...

the fastest of the trio in twelfth. Rydell led the opening free practice session on Saturday morning, the first of a SEAT 1–2–3–4. Farfus was the fastest BMW in fifth and Larini was the fastest Chevrolet down in thirteenth.

Robert Huff Robert Peter "Rob" Huff (born 25 December 1979) is a British professional racing driver. He currently competes in the World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) driving for Zengő Motorsport. He was the 2012 World Touring Car Championship champion and the ...

was unable to set a time due to an oil leak on his

Chevrolet Cruze The Chevrolet Cruze is a compact car that is produced by General Motors since 2008. It was designated as a globally developed, designed, and manufactured four-door compact sedan, complemented by a five-door hatchback body variant from 2011, and ...

. The second free practice session saw Rydell go quickest once again. The BMWs of Farfus and

Jörg Müller Jörg Müller (, ; born 3 September 1969) is a Dutch-born German BMW factory driver. Racing career Born in Kerkrade, Netherlands, Müller won the titles in 1989 German Formula Opel Lotus Challenge and in 1989 European Formula Ford 1600. The 199 ...

were second and third ahead of the SEAT Sport pair of Yvan Muller and Tarquini. The final two factory SEATs were

Tiago Monteiro Tiago Vagaroso da Costa Monteiro (; born 24 July 1976) is a Portuguese professional racing driver currently competing in the World Touring Car Cup, driving a Honda Civic TCR for Engstler Motorsport. He competed in Formula One between 2005 an ...

and

Jordi Gené Jordi Gené Guerrero (born 5 December 1970) is a racing driver who competed in the World Touring Car Championship between 2005 and 2010. His younger brother, Marc is also a ex-racing driver and is currently a Brand Ambassador for the Scuderia Fe ...

were eighth and thirteenth respectively.

Qualifying

Augusto Farfus,

and BMW pushed to the limit and interrupted SEAT’s domination that lasted since the test session in

Curitiba Curitiba () is the capital and largest city in the state of Paraná in Brazil. The city's population was 1,948,626 , making it the eighth most populous city in Brazil and the largest in Brazil's South Region. The Curitiba Metropolitan area ...

. Farfus won pole position, posting the fastest time of the session with a lap of 1:37.981, the first driver to break the 1:38 wall so far. He beat Priaulx by only 0.045 seconds, while

saved SEAT’s honour claiming third position with a one-tenth gap. BMW and SEAT cars equally shared the ten positions giving access to Q2. Although they sat in the pits until halfway through the session, all five SEAT Sport drivers managed to make the top-ten, with Gabriele Tarquini in second with a gap of 0.065 seconds after having clocked a provisional fastest lap at 1:38.047. Félix Porteiro topped the Independents again and also managed to advance to Q2 setting the 10th fastest lap at 1:38.972. Chevrolet and LADA drivers remained all out of Q2; Nicola Larini missed the top-ten by 18 thousandths of a second, while Jaap van Lagen’s session ended prematurely because of an engine leak. In Q2,

was the first to post a quick lap at 1:37.924, but the reigning world champion was immediately ousted by Farfus with the time of 1:37.682.

, Sergio Hernández and Andy Priaulx were the last to join the session. In the dying seconds Priaulx managed to jump into second with a lap of 1:37.727, a time which resisted to Tarquini’s last attempt that was worth third place (1:37.793). Porteiro completed a lap of 1:38.525 that gave him a brilliant eighth position on the grid for Race 1.http://www.fiawtcc.com/2009/uploadedFiles/PDF/RP.2.20093226381.pdf Qualifying Report

Warm-Up

Pole sitter Farfus topped the times in Sunday morning's warm–up session, ahead of Priaulx and Rydell.

Race One

Rickard Rydell forced his way through the BMW front row to claim SEAT’s third consecutive victory in three rounds. Augusto Farfus and Andy Priaulx put a lot of pressure on the Swedish driver and eventually settled in second and third respectively, the first podium results for BMW in the season so far. While SEAT and BMW men were fighting for the top positions, Nicola Larini managed to defend his eighth place, scoring the first point for the new Chevrolet Cruze. Félix Porteiro won the Independents’ class once again, recovering from the 14th position where he had fallen after being involved in a collision at the start.http://www.fiawtcc.com/2009/uploadedFiles/PDF/RP.2.20093232255.pdf Race Report

Race Two

The second race was another SEAT vs BMW fight. The reigning world champion Yvan Muller claimed his second victory of the season as he managed to keep at bay the former world champion Andy Priaulx. Jordi Gené took the lead at the start, but then, in a breathtaking succession of overtaking manoeuvres, Jörg Müller, Tarquini, Yvan Muller, Priaulx, Rydell and Farfus overturned the order completely. Müller and Tarquini however, had to leave the company after they clashed on lap 6 and slipped down. All the three Chevrolet cars completed the race, with Larini’s in tenth position, and so did the LADA cars, with Jaap van Lagen’s in 17th. Porteiro claimed a fourth consecutive win in the Independents’ trophy.

Results

Qualifying

: — Kristian Poulsen had his qualifying times deleted after failing to stop at the weighing point after the session.

Race 1

*Bold denotes ''Fastest lap''.

Race 2

*Bold denotes ''Fastest lap''.

Standings after the event

;Drivers' Championship standings ;Yokohama Independents' Trophy standings ;Manufacturers' Championship standings * Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of drivers' standings.

References

External links

Results Booklet PDF at MST Systems
{{DEFAULTSORT:2009 Fia Wtcc Race Of Mexico