The 2009 FIA WTCC Marriott Race of the Czech Republic was the sixth 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 ...

and the fourth running of the

FIA WTCC Race of the Czech Republic The FIA WTCR Race of the Czech Republic is a round of the World Touring Car Cup, which is held at the Autodrom Most in the Czech Republic. The race took place between 2006 season and 2011 season in the Masaryk Circuit. Winners {{WTCC rac ...

. It was held on 21 June 2009 at the

Masaryk Circuit The Masaryk circuit ( cz, Masarykův okruh) or Masarykring, also referred to as the Brno Circuit, refers to two motorsport race tracks located in Brno, Czech Republic. The original street circuit was made up of public roads, and at its longest m ...

near Brno,

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

. BMW Team Italy-Spain won both races with

Alex Zanardi Alessandro "Alex" Zanardi (; born 23 October 1966) is an Italian professional racing driver and paracyclist. He won the CART championship in 1997 and 1998, and took 15 wins in the series. He also raced in Formula One from 1991 to 1994 and aga ...

winning the first race and Sergio Hernández winning the second race.

Background

Coming into the round,

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 ...

driver

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 leading the drivers' championship by a three-point margin over BMW Team Germany's Augusto Farfus.

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 ...

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. Tom's twin brother

Tim Coronel Tim Alfa Coronel (born 5 April 1972, in Naarden) is a Dutch racing driver. He is the twin brother of World Touring Car Championship driver Tom Coronel. Racing career Tim made his first steps in racing by winning the Dutch Citroën AX Cup in 1994 ...

joined SUNRED Engineering for the event to make his WTCC debut. Exagon Engineering and their driver

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 ...

missed the round before returning at the Race of Portugal.

Report

Free practice

BMW cars dominated first practice taking the top five positions on Saturday morning. In wet conditions,

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 ...

was fastest just under 0.15s ahead of Zanardi.

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 ...

was the fastest SEAT drive in sixth place and the fastest Chevrolet was that of

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 ...

in seventh. BMW filled the top four places in the second free practice session with Farfus setting the fastest time. SEAT cars filled the next five places, led by

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 ...

while the fastest Chevrolet was

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 ...

in tenth. The track was still damp after the morning but it was drying as the session progressed.

Qualifying

Farfus took his third pole position of the year with Priaulx alongside him on the front row. Behind them were Zanardi and the fastest Chevrolet of Larini. Only two SEATs made it through to Q2, Rydell lined up fifth and Tarquini sixth.

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 ...

driver

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 the fastest independent lining up tenth. Priaulx had been fastest in Q1 but changing weather conditions favoured Farfus later on. Out in Q1 were SEAT Sport drivers

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 ...

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 ...

and points leader Yvan Muller.

Warm-Up

Farfus was quickest in Sunday mornings warm up session with BMW cars in the top five positions.

Race One

Farfus moved to the left at the start, collecting Priaulx, Huff, Larini and Gené before beaching himself in the gravel trap. Priaulx limped back to the pits minus his front bumper and with broken front suspension while Farfus, Huff and Larini were stuck at turn one. The incident allowed Tarquini and Zanardi to pass up the inside and continue. Tarquini led away from the restart before Zanardi quickly passed the SEAT and pulled away into the lead. Zanardi took victory at Brno for the second consecutive year while Jörg Müller had climbed up from eleventh to second ahead of Tarquini. Porteiro was the winning Yokohama Independent driver and Yvan Muller finished eighth to secure pole position for race two.

Race Two

Starting on the front row, Porteiro moved into the lead at the start while Hernández then took second from pole sitter Yvan Muller. The leading pair ran close together and on lap three Hernández made his move to take the lead. Porteiro dropped down to fourth on lap four when he was passed by Muller and Monteiro. Behind them, a battle for fifth place was developing between BMW pair Priaulx and Müller and SEAT pair Tarquini and Rydell. While the BMW duo were contesting fifth place, Tarquini and Rydell overtook the pair of them. At the line Hernández took his first ever WTCC win with Muller second and Monteiro third, fourth place for Porteiro secured him the independents' win.

Results

Qualifying

Race 1

*Bold denotes ''Fastest lap''.

Race 2

*Bold denotes ''Fastest lap''.

Championship standings

;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
{{WTCC race, Name_of_race = FIA WTCC Race of the Czech Republic , Year_of_race = 2009 , Previous_race_in_season =

2009 FIA WTCC Race of Spain The FIA WTCC Race of Spain 2009 was the fifth round of the 2009 World Touring Car Championship season and the fifth running of the FIA WTCC Race of Spain. It was held on 31 May 2009 at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Cheste, near Valencia in Spain. ...

, Next_race_in_season =

2009 FIA WTCC Race of Portugal The 2009 FIA WTCC Race of Portugal was the seventh round of the 2009 World Touring Car Championship season and the third FIA WTCC Race of Portugal. It was held on 5 July 2009 at the temporary Circuito da Boavista street course in Porto, Portugal. ...

, Previous_year's_race =

2008 FIA WTCC Race of the Czech Republic 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

, Next_year's_race = 2010 FIA WTCC Race of the Czech Republic