The 2009 FIA WTCC Race of Morocco (formally the 2009 FIA WTCC HSBC Race of Morocco) was the third 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 and ...

. It was held on 3 May 2009 at the

Marrakech Street Circuit The Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan (also known as Marrakech Street Circuit and Marrakech Racetrack) is a temporary street circuit in Agdal district, Marrakech, Morocco. The circuit is operated by MGP. It has a capacity of 1 ...

Marrakech Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakes ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

. It was the inaugural running of the

FIA WTCC Race of Morocco The FIA WTCR Race of Morocco (سباق المغرب) is a round of the World Touring Car Championship, held on the temporary Marrakech Street Circuit in the city of Marrakech in Morocco. The race was first run in May 2009 on a purpose-built track ...

. The two races were won by

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...

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 ...

and

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 ...

, the former taking the first win for the

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 ...

in the

World Touring Car Championship The FIA World Touring Car Championship was an international touring car championship promoted by Eurosport Events and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It has had several different incarnations, including a sin ...

Background

After the previous round in

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 ...

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 ...

was tied at the top of the drivers' standings with

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 miss ...

teammate

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 Champ ...

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 ...

had established a 23 point lead over

Tom Coronel Tom Romeo Coronel (born 5 April 1972) is a Dutch professional racing driver. Tom's twin brother Tim is also a racer, just like their father Tom Coronel Sr. His most important results are winning the Marlboro Masters of Formula 3 race in 1997, th ...

in 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 To ...

Independents' Trophy. This was the first FIA World Championship race to be held in Morocco since the

1958 Moroccan Grand Prix The 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix, formally the VII Grand Prix International Automobile du Maroc, was a Formula One motor race held at Ain-Diab Circuit, Casablanca on 19 October 1958, after a six-week break following the Italian Grand Prix. It was race ...

. The WTCC saw its first North African driver participate in an event when

Mehdi Bennani Mehdi Bennani ( ar, مهدي بناني, born 25 August 1983) is a Moroccan racing driver who currently competes in the TCR Europe with Sébastien Loeb Racing. He was TCR Europe Champion in 2020 with the Belgian team Comtoyou Racing. He became ...

joined the grid in an Exagon Engineering run SEAT León 2.0 TFSI. Other changes were made to

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 ...

expanded to three cars for Morocco to run a

BMW 320si The fifth generation of the BMW 3 Series range of compact executive cars is designated under the model codes E90 (saloon), E91 (estate, marketed as 'Touring'), E92 (coupé) and E93 (convertible). The model was introduced in December 2004, and pr ...

for

Vito Postiglione Vito Postiglione (born 28 February 1977 in Potenza) is an Italian racing driver. Racing career Postiglione won the Italian Renault Mégane Winter Trophy in 1998. He then finished runner-up in the main series in 1999. He went one better, winnin ...

, and Tom Boardman requested a new car which wouldn't have been ready for the Moroccan event so he elected to skip the round and focus on returning for the Race of France.

Report

Testing and free practice

Yvan Muller topped the times as the WTCC cars took to the

for the first time in Friday's test session. He was closely followed by Chevrolet's

Alain Menu Alain Menu (born 9 August 1963) is a Swiss racing driver who is currently working for Team BMR as a driving coach. He was one of the most successful touring car drivers of the 1990s, winning the prestigious British Touring Car Championship twice ...

and SEAT Sport team mate Rydell. SEAT Sport stayed on top in free practice one on Saturday morning, forming a SEAT 1–2–3–4–5 with Menu sixth. Coronel in seventh was the fastest independent driver 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 ...

in eighth was the fastest factory BMW car,

and

Stefano D'Aste Stefano D'Aste (born 26 February 1974 in Genoa) is an Italian auto racing driver. His early racing career included competing on motorcycles and the Monza International Rally. He has competed in the World Touring Car Championship between 2004 (wh ...

rounded out the top ten. Yvan Muller topped the afternoon session with SEATs filling the top six places. Menu was sixth ahead of Huff and the fastest BMW was that of independent driver

Franz Engstler Franz Engstler (born 25 July 1961) is a German auto racing driver. Racing career Born in Kempten im Allgäu, Engstler started racing in the European Hillclimbing Championship and the German Long Distance Cup, which he won. From 1988 he competed ...

Qualifying

Chevrolet's Huff beat practice pace setters SEAT in qualifying to claim pole position, the first for the new Cruze car.

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 ...

started second and Yvan Muller third. Despite setting the second fastest lap, Menu was demoted to 10th because the Stewards disallowed his Q2 qualifying times after his car did not restart following a mandatory visit to the weighing bay. In Q1, SEAT had company at the top of the qualifying timesheet in the form of Chevrolet. While

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 ...

initially made claim to pole with a 1:51.086, Menu (1:50.271), Larini (1:50.723) and Huff (1:50.817) stole the top spots. The end of the session saw Andy Priaulx miss his braking point at turn 1 and clash with Hernández who had come off his line to let Zanardi through. Due to the fact he received external aid to restart, Priaulx was not permitted to take part in Q2 and therefore qualified ninth following Menu's penalty. All of the LADA drivers remained out of Q2. Despite not making Q2, Moroccan driver Mehdi Bennani put in a strong performance to qualify 14th overall and second of the Independents. In Q2, the session ended prematurely for Jörg Müller who suffered a rear left puncture after six minutes. He did not post a competitive qualifying time and lined up eighth for Race 1. The pack was tight and at one point during the session just four tenths of a second split the top six. On the last lap Huff charged to the front with a 1:49.789. Tarquini clocked a 1:50.086 on his last lap to secure a front-row place and Muller's best time was 1:50.156. Muller lined up third followed by

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 Ferr ...

, Larini and Monteiro. Engstler qualified as best Independent and BMW driver in seventh, while Menu's qualifying session ended when he hit the wall at turn 2 on his last lap.http://www.fiawtcc.com/2009/uploadedFiles/PDF/RP.3.200952223750.pdf Qualifying Report

Warm-Up

Yvan Muller topped the warm–up session on Sunday morning with fellow SEAT drivers Gené second, Coronel third, Tarquini fourth and Monteiro fifth. Jörg Müller was the leading BMW while pole sitter Huff was eighth.

Race One

Robert Huff converted his pole into a win for Chevrolet, the first for the new Cruze car in its fifth race. Huff led the field from the start to finish with Gabriele Tarquini behind him the whole way to take second. Jordi Gené overtook Yvan Muller on the penultimate lap to secure third. Farfus' team-mate Jörg Müller was the fastest BMW and his eighth place finish meant pole in Race 2. Fellow BMW driver Alessandro Zanardi retired from the race on lap four. The safety car was deployed at the end of the first lap after an incident involving Müller, Alain Menu and Rickard Rydell resulted in Rydell being squeezed into the wall at turn two and incurring race-ending damage to his car. Moroccan driver Mehdi Bennani was best Independent in ninth overall, while Augusto Farfus was challenged hard by Tom Coronel for 12th position, but in the end, Coronel made a mistake at turn 11 on lap 10 and lost the battle.http://www.fiawtcc.com/2009/uploadedFiles/PDF/RP.3.200953195029.pdf Race Report

Race Two

The second race saw Nicola Larini celebrate his first ever WTCC win. Yvan Muller took second place ahead of Race 1 winner Robert Huff. Jörg Müller led until lap eight when he went wide at turn 15 allowing Larini, Muller and Huff through. The BMW Team Germany driver eventually finished fourth ahead of Tarquini, Farfus and Monteiro. Franz Engstler took the final point in eighth as well as the Independent win. Andy Priaulx was in contention for points until lap 11 where he missed the braking point at turn 7 – he retired to the pits on the next lap. Mehdi Bennani also went straight at the same point on lap 11 but continued to finish 10th and third independent. The safety car was deployed for two laps at the start after Hernández's car was stranded in an unsafe place.

Results

Qualifying

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 Morocco

FIA WTCC Race of Morocco