The 2012 FIA WTCC Race of Brazil was the eighth round of the 2012 World Touring Car Championship season and the seventh running of the

FIA WTCC Race of Brazil The FIA WTCC Race of Brazil was a round of the World Touring Car Championship, it was held at the Autódromo Internacional de Curitiba near the city of Curitiba in the Brazilian state of Paraná. The race was run every year between 2006 and 201 ...

. It was held on 22 July 2012 at the Autódromo Internacional de Curitiba in

Pinhais Pinhais is a municipality in Paraná state in Brazil. As of 2020, the population was 133,490. It was emancipated from the municipality of Piraquara in 1992 and is part of the metropolitan region of Curitiba Curitiba () is the capital and l ...

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 ...

. Both 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 ...

with

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 ...

winning race one and

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 ...

winning race two.

Background

In the break prior to the event,

announced they were pulling out of the World Touring Car Championship at the end of the season. This would leave Muller, Huff and

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 ...

without drives for the 2013 season. It was Yvan Muller who was leading the championship coming into Brazil on 245 points ahead of Huff and Menu.

Pepe Oriola Josep "Pepe" Oriola Vila (born 9 July 1994) is a Spanish racing driver. He became the youngest driver to race in the World Touring Car Championship when he competed in the 2011 season. Oriola is not only the youngest driver to start a WTCC race ...

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 To ...

Independents' Trophy. In the weeks prior to Brazil,

Honda is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a product ...

also announced their 2013 driver lineup.

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 ...

and

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 ...

would join the works team for the following season, with Monteiro also driving for them in the final three events of the 2012 season.

Pasquale di Sabatino Pasquale Di Sabatino (born 20 January 1988, in Atri, Italy, Atri) is a professional Auto racing, racing driver from Italy. He has previously competed in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series where he was a race winner. He drove in the World Touring Car ...

, recovering from bronchitis and pneumonia was ruled out of competing by doctors.

Michel Nykjær Michel Nykjær (born 17 September 1979) is a Danish auto racing driver. Nykjær is a two-time European Touring Car Cup winner. Career Early years Between 1989 and 1993 he spent his early racing years in karting. After a break, he returned to mo ...

substituted for the Italian driver at

bamboo-engineering Craft-Bamboo Racing is an auto racing team. It was founded in 2014 after the merger of Craft Racing from Hong Kong and Bamboo Engineering from the United Kingdom. Craft Racing was established by Frank Yu in 2009 and was a front running team in ...

for the weekend.

Report

Free Practice

Muller led a Chevrolet 1–2–3 in free practice one with Tarquini in fourth ahead of the bamboo-engineering Chevrolet duo of Michel Nykjær and

Alex MacDowall Alexander "Alex" Hay MacDowall (born 22 January, 1991) is a British auto racing driver. He is currently competing in the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship season for Aston Martin Racing. Racing career Early career MacDowall was born in Car ...

. Muller topped the times once again in the second free practice session ahead of both his Chevrolet teammates. Behind them it was the future Honda duo of Tarquini and Monteiro in front of the bamboo-engineering drivers.

Qualifying

After leading both free practice sessions, Muller took his third pole position of the season with Menu second and Huff third. Nykjær lined up fourth on his return to the WTCC with Tarquini the leading non-Chevrolet driver in fifth.

Norbert Michelisz Norbert Michelisz (born 8 August 1984) is a Hungarian auto racing driver and the 2019 winner of the World Touring Car Cup. Career Early career Michelisz was the 2006 Hungarian Suzuki Swift Cup champion, and in 2007 he won the Hungarian Ren ...

finished 10th in Q2 to take the reversed grid pole position for race two.

Warm-Up

Muller led a Chevrolet 1–2–3–4 in Sunday morning's warm-up session with Tarquini the fastest non-Chevrolet car.

Race One

The three

cars led from the start and had an easy race with the exception of third placed Huff who had to defend from the

SEAT A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but also headquarters in a wider sense. Types of seat The following are examples of different kinds of seat: * Armchair (furniture), ...

of Tarquini. A coming together on the second lap forced both Monteiro and

Alberto Cerqui Alberto Cerqui (born 20 June 1992, in Brescia) is an Italian racing driver. He has competed in the World Touring Car Championship. Career Single seaters After winning titles in karting, Cerqui graduated to single-seater racing in 2009, racing in ...

into retirement. Tarquini finished fourth behind the works Chevrolet cars, led by Muller and ahead of the bamboo-engineering pair of Nykjær and MacDowall. Nykjær celebrated his return to the WTCC as the winning independent driver. Michelisz finished ahead of Oriola in the independents' race which would see him close in the Yokohama Trophy title lead. A last lap coming together between Stefano D'Aste and

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 ...

for fifteenth landed D'Aste with a 30-second penalty after the race, dropping him to seventeenth.

Race Two

Michelisz started on pole position for the second race and he held the lead until half distance when he got passed by Tarquini, Huff, Menu and Muller on the same lap. Huff and Menu were then able to overtake the Italian driver and use him as a buffer between themselves and championship leader Muller. A coming together between

ROAL Motorsport ROAL Motorsport (previously known as Ravaglia Motorsport) is an Italian auto racing team, which operated the BMW Team Italy-Spain team in the World Touring Car Championship, and currently competes as BMW Team Italia in the Italian GT Championshi ...

's Cerqui and

Lukoil Racing Team Lukoil Racing team is the leading Russian motorsport organization; its operations including management, driver training and support, engineering expertise and a quality technical environment, which enables continuous development, building, testing ...

Aleksei Dudukalo Aleksey Nikolayevich Dudukalo ( rus, Алексе́й Никола́евич Дудука́ло, p=ɐlʲɪˈksej nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ dʊdʊˈkalə; born 6 October 1976, in Moscow) is a Russian auto racing driver. He raced in the World Touring ...

forced the BMW to crash into the pit wall and retirement. At the flag Huff and Menu formed a Chevrolet 1–2 with Tarquini third and Muller missing out on a podium in fourth. Michelisz finished fifth as the winning independent as Oriola watched on from the pits having retired from the race, his Yokohama Trophy lead lost to the

Zengő Motorsport Zengő Motorsport is a Hungarian motor racing team founded by Zoltán Zengő. They currently compete in the World Touring Car Cup and others TCR championships. The team also used to compete in the SEAT León Eurocup, where they won driver's titl ...

driver.

Results

Qualifying

*Bold denotes ''Pole position'' for second race.

Race 1

*Bold denotes ''Fastest lap''.

Race 2

*Bold denotes ''Fastest lap''.

Standings after the round

;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

{{WTCC race, Name_of_race = FIA WTCC Race of Brazil , Year_of_race = 2012 , Previous_race_in_season = 2012 FIA WTCC Race of Portugal , Next_race_in_season = 2012 FIA WTCC Race of the United States , Previous_year's_race = 2011 FIA WTCC Race of Brazil , Next_year's_race = ''none''