2012 Guia Race of Macau

2012 Guia Race of Macau

Race details
Round 12 of 12 in the 2012 World Touring Car Championship at Guia Circuit in Macau.
Date	18 November, 2012
Location	Macau
Course	Guia Circuit 6.120 kilometres (3.803 mi)
Race One
Laps 9 Pole position Driver Robert Huff Chevrolet Time 2:29.422 Podium First Yvan Muller Chevrolet Second Alain Menu Chevrolet Third Tiago Monteiro Honda Racing Team JAS Fastest Lap Driver Alain Menu Chevrolet Time 2:32.063
Race Two
Laps 9 Podium First Alain Menu Chevrolet Second Robert Huff Chevrolet Third Yvan Muller Chevrolet Fastest Lap Driver Robert Huff Chevrolet Time 2:32.422

The 2012 Guia Race of Macau was the twelfth and final round of the 2012 World Touring Car Championship season and the eighth running of the Guia Race of Macau. It was held on 18 November 2012 at the Guia Circuit in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau. The race was part of the Macau Grand Prix weekend, headlined by the Formula Three event. Both races were won by Chevrolet in their final event as a works team; Yvan Muller won the first race and Alain Menu won the second race, while the team's third driver Robert Huff became series champion with second to Menu in the second race.

Background

At the previous round in the Race of China, Robert Huff had established himself as the solo championship leader. Norbert Michelisz was leading the Yokohama Independents' Trophy.

A number of local drivers joined the field for the race, Jo Merszei joined Liqui Moly Team Engstler in a naturally aspirated BMW 320si previously run in 2012 by Masaki Kano and Alex Liu. ^[1] Andre Couto joined Tuenti Racing Team for his annual appearance at Macau. ^[2] China Dragon Racing added a second Chevrolet Lacetti for Celio Alves Dias. ^[2] RPM Racing Team ran a BMW 320si for Mak Ka Lok while Five Auto Racing Team ran a BMW 320si for Henry Ho and a Honda Accord Euro R for Eurico de Jesus. ^[2] Italian former All-Japan Formula Three driver Kei Cozzolino made his maiden touring car appearance, replacing Alberto Cerqui at ROAL Motorsport. ^[3]

This was to be the last race for Chevrolet as a works team in the WTCC having announced their departure from the series in July. ^[4]

Report

Free Practice

Tiago Monteiro set the pace in the shortened Thursday test session, with Mehdi Bennani and Stefano D'Aste have initially set the pace. Cozzolino, Mak Ka Lok and Franz Engstler recovered from spins with relatively little damage, the session was however red flagged three minutes from the end when bamboo-engineering driver Darryl O'Young crashed head on into the barrier at the Mandarin Oriental corner. ^[5]

Huff went quickest in Free Practice 1 on Friday, having spent much of the session trading times with team mates Muller and Menu and Honda Racing Team JAS driver Monteiro. O'Young was able to participate after his car was repaired overnight, Cozzolino damaged his car colliding with a barrier and Henry Ho was once again unable to run, this time due to a gearbox failure. ^[6]

Huff led the Chevrolet trio in the second free practice session which distanced itself from the next nearest challenger, the Lukoil Racing SEAT León of Gabriele Tarquini, by 1.3 seconds. Damage sustained in the first free practice session meant Cozzolino did not get any running in for ROAL Motorsport, while Bennani and D'Aste had two separate near misses with the barriers. ^[7]

Qualifying

Having led free practice, Huff dominated qualifying to claim his fourth pole position at Macau and extend his championship lead. He set a new lap record for the circuit in doing so, beating the record previously held by team mate Menu. Muller was second and Menu was third, with Tarquini fourth and Monteiro fifth in the new Honda Civic. O'Young took the independents' pole position with sixth place just ahead of Yokohama Trophy challengers Michelisz and Pepe Oriola. Fellow trophy challenger D'Aste could only manage 11th, setting a slightly slower time in Q2 than in Q1. Fredy Barth brought out the red flags when he crashed at Police bend, the stoppage hampering Tom Coronel's effort to progress to Q2. ^[8] Six drivers set times slower than the 107% time in Q1, three of which had their times removed as a penalty for not reporting to the weighing bay. They were given permission to start the races from the back of the grid. ^[9]

Warm-Up

Pole sitter Huff led the Sunday morning warm up session with Monteiro continuing to show potential in second and championship outsider Muller third. An off at the Melco hairpin for Barth brought out the yellow flags late in the otherwise undisturbed session. ^[10]

Race One

Huff started on pole position but it was Muller who grabbed the lead for the first three laps while Monteiro grabbed fourth from Tarquini. A crash at Lisboa further down the field on the opening lap involving the Yokohama Trophy contenders block the track briefly, the leading six cars built a gap to the rest of the field after this. D'Aste was able to resume but was later issued with a black and orange flag due to the damage sustained in the accident. A move by Huff at Lisboa to take the lead demoted Muller to second on lap three for a short time before the race leader collided with a barrier and broke his suspension, promoting Muller back into the lead. Muller led the rest of the race to claim his ninth victory of the season ahead of Menu and Monteiro on his first podium appearance for Honda. O'Young finished as the independent winner having started from the class pole. ^[11]

Race Two

Bamboo driver Alex MacDowall started from pole position on the reversed grid but a quick start by Michelisz soon put the Zengő Motorsport driver into the lead of the race. Menu made good progress from eighth and was soon up to fourth place behind Oriola, he got by the Tuenti Racing driver on the second lap. MacDowall reclaimed the lead from Michelisz but both drivers were easy targets for Menu who assumed the lead. MacDowall dropped to fourth where he remained until contact from Muller spun him into the barrier on the exit of the high speed Mandarin bend, Huff then took fourth off Muller. A long safety car period followed as work started to clear the debris from the collision, the race distance was extended and the action resumed on lap 8. Oriola out-braked himself going into Lisboa in a bid to pass Michelisz, putting them both in the barrier and bringing out the safety car for the second and final time. The race ended under the safety car with Chevrolet claiming a dominant 1–2–3 finish with Menu leading Huff and Muller. Huff secured his first World Touring Car Championship crown and Michelisz won the Yokohama Independents' Trophy despite not finishing the race. ^[12]

Results

Qualifying

Pos.	No.	Name	Team	Car	C	Q1	Q2	Points
1	2	Robert Huff	Chevrolet	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T		2:30.903	2:29.422	5
2	1	Yvan Muller	Chevrolet	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T		2:30.950	2:30.144	4
3	8	Alain Menu	Chevrolet	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T		2:31.490	2:30.488	3
4	3	Gabriele Tarquini	Lukoil Racing	SEAT León WTCC		2:31.868	2:30.936	2
5	18	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda Civic S2000 TC		2:31.366	2:31.539	1
6	20	Darryl O'Young	bamboo-engineering	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	Y	2:32.066	2:31.643
7	5	Norbert Michelisz	Zengő Motorsport	BMW 320 TC	Y	2:32.458	2:31.670
8	25	Mehdi Bennani	Proteam Racing	BMW 320 TC	Y	2:32.989	2:32.157
9	74	Pepe Oriola	Tuenti Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	2:32.907	2:32.475
10	11	Alex MacDowall	bamboo-engineering	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	Y	2:32.762	2:32.521
11	26	Stefano D'Aste	Wiechers-Sport	BMW 320 TC	Y	2:32.945	2:33.025
12	6	Franz Engstler	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW 320 TC	Y	2:33.091	2:33.107
13	15	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport	BMW 320 TC		2:33.181
14	22	Tom Boardman	Special Tuning Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	2:33.270
15	73	Fredy Barth	SEAT Swiss Racing by SUNRED	SEAT León WTCC	Y	2:33.358
16	14	James Nash	Team Aon	Ford Focus S2000 TC		2:34.792
17	23	Tom Chilton	Team Aon	Ford Focus S2000 TC		2:34.969
18	4	Aleksei Dudukalo	Lukoil Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	2:35.025
19	7	Charles Ng	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW 320 TC	Y	2:35.180
20	66	Andre Couto	Tuenti Racing	SR León 1.6T		2:35.218
21	88	Fernando Monje	Tuenti Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	2:35.307
22	46	Kei Cozzolino	ROAL Motorsport	BMW 320 TC	Y	2:39.020
23	77	Jo Merszei	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW 320si	Y	2:40.785
107% time: 2:41.466
—	82	Henry Ho	Five Auto Racing Team	BMW 320si	Y	2:42.170
—	55	Celio Alves Dias	China Dragon Racing	Chevrolet Lacetti	Y	2:43.630
—	81	Eurico de Jesus	Five Auto Racing Team	Honda Accord Euro R	Y	2:43.816
—	50	Felipe De Souza	China Dragon Racing	Chevrolet Lacetti	Y	no time set
—	51	Kin Veng Ng	China Dragon Racing	Chevrolet Cruze LT	Y	no time set
—	78	Mak Ka Lok	RPM Racing Team	BMW 320si	Y	no time set

• Bold denotes Pole position for second race.

Race 1

Pos.	No.	Name	Team	Car	C	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Yvan Muller	Chevrolet	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T		9	23:08.977	2	25
2	8	Alain Menu	Chevrolet	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T		9	+0.915	3	18
3	18	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda Civic S2000 TC		9	+1.297	5	15
4	3	Gabriele Tarquini	Lukoil Racing	SEAT León WTCC		9	+1.967	4	12
5	20	Darryl O'Young	bamboo-engineering	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	Y	9	+11.519	6	10
6	15	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport	BMW 320 TC		9	+55.136	13	8
7	6	Franz Engstler	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW 320 TC	Y	9	+1:04.037	12	6
8	73	Fredy Barth	SEAT Swiss Racing by SUNRED	SEAT León WTCC	Y	9	+1:09.730	15	4
9	11	Alex MacDowall	bamboo-engineering	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	Y	9	+1:16.524	10	2
10	22	Tom Boardman	Special Tuning Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	9	+1:22.194	14	1
11	4	Aleksei Dudukalo	Lukoil Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	9	+1:22.372	18
12	14	James Nash	Team Aon	Ford Focus S2000 TC		9	+1:23.053	16
13	23	Tom Chilton	Team Aon	Ford Focus S2000 TC		9	+1:25.822	17
14	88	Fernando Monje	Tuenti Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	9	+1:29.347	21
15	66	Andre Couto	Tuenti Racing	SR León 1.6T		9	+2:12.605	20
16	82	Henry Ho	Five Auto Racing Team	BMW 320si	Y	9	+2:19.429	24
17	77	Jo Merszei	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW 320si	Y	9	+3:23.533	23
18	50	Felipe De Souza	China Dragon Racing	Chevrolet Lacetti	Y	7	+2 Laps	27
19	55	Celio Alves Dias	China Dragon Racing	Chevrolet Lacetti	Y	7	+2 Laps	25
20	46	Kei Cozzolino	ROAL Motorsport	BMW 320 TC	Y	7	Accident	22
21	78	Mak Ka Lok	RPM Racing Team	BMW 320si	Y	6	+3 Laps	29
Ret	51	Kin Veng Ng	China Dragon Racing	Chevrolet Cruze LT	Y	5	Suspension	28
Ret	2	Robert Huff	Chevrolet	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T		4	Accident damage	1
Ret	7	Charles Ng	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW 320 TC	Y	4	Accident	19
NC	5	Norbert Michelisz	Zengő Motorsport	BMW 320 TC	Y	3	+6 Laps	7
Ret	26	Stefano D'Aste	Wiechers-Sport	BMW 320 TC	Y	2	Accident damage	11
Ret	81	Eurico de Jesus	Five Auto Racing Team	Honda Accord Euro R	Y	1	Accident damage	26
Ret	74	Pepe Oriola	Tuenti Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	0	Collision	9
Ret	25	Mehdi Bennani	Proteam Racing	BMW 320 TC	Y	0	Collision	8

• Bold denotes Fastest lap.

Race 2

Pos.	No.	Name	Team	Car	C	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	8	Alain Menu	Chevrolet	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T		11	35:36.096	7	25
2	2	Robert Huff	Chevrolet	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T		11	+0.320	9	18
3	1	Yvan Muller	Chevrolet	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T		11	+0.889	8	15
4	18	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda Civic S2000 TC		11	+9.015	5	12
5	20	Darryl O'Young	bamboo-engineering	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	Y	11	+9.786	4	10
6	6	Franz Engstler	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW 320 TC	Y	11	+10.127	11	8
7	4	Aleksei Dudukalo	Lukoil Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	11	+11.024	18	6
8	73	Fredy Barth	SEAT Swiss Racing by SUNRED	SEAT León WTCC	Y	11	+11.399	14	4
9	22	Tom Boardman	Special Tuning Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	11	+11.582	13	2
10	88	Fernando Monje	Tuenti Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	11	+11.900	19	1
11	66	Andre Couto	Tuenti Racing	SR León 1.6T		11	+12.412	18
12	14	James Nash	Team Aon	Ford Focus S2000 TC		11	+20.496	15
13	77	Jo Merszei	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW 320si	Y	11	+20.883	20
14	50	Felipe De Souza	China Dragon Racing	Chevrolet Lacetti	Y	11	+21.920	24
15	55	Celio Alves Dias	China Dragon Racing	Chevrolet Lacetti	Y	11	+22.760	22
16	78	Mak Ka Lok	RPM Racing Team	BMW 320si	Y	11	+24.741	26
17	51	Kin Veng Ng	China Dragon Racing	Chevrolet Cruze LT	Y	11	+25.589	25
18	81	Eurico de Jesus	Five Auto Racing Team	Honda Accord Euro R	Y	11	+26.243	23
19	46	Kei Cozzolino	ROAL Motorsport	BMW 320 TC	Y	9	+2 Laps	29
20	3	Gabriele Tarquini	Lukoil Racing	SEAT León WTCC		9	Floor	6
21	5	Norbert Michelisz	Zengő Motorsport	BMW 320 TC	Y	8	Collision	3
22	74	Pepe Oriola	Tuenti Racing	SEAT León WTCC	Y	8	Collision	2
23	26	Stefano D'Aste	Wiechers-Sport	BMW 320 TC	Y	8	Accident	10
Ret	15	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport	BMW 320 TC		4	Radiator	12
Ret	11	Alex MacDowall	bamboo-engineering	Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T	Y	3	Collision	1
Ret	23	Tom Chilton	Team Aon	Ford Focus S2000 TC		3	Collision	16
Ret	25	Mehdi Bennani	Proteam Racing	BMW 320 TC	Y	3	Collision	27
Ret	82	Henry Ho	Five Auto Racing Team	BMW 320si	Y	1	Clutch	21
DNS	7	Charles Ng	Liqui Moly Team Engstler	BMW 320 TC	Y	0	Accident damage	28

• Bold denotes Fastest lap.

Final championship standings

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Robert Huff 413 2 Alain Menu 401 3 Yvan Muller 393 4 Gabriele Tarquini 252 5 Tom Coronel 207

Yokohama Independents' Trophy standings Pos Driver Points 1 Norbert Michelisz 139 2 Pepe Oriola 126 3 Stefano D'Aste 122 1 4 Franz Engstler 114 1 5 Alex MacDowall 105

Manufacturers' Championship standings Pos Manufacturer Points 1 Chevrolet 1025 2 BMW Customer Racing Teams 650 3 SEAT Racing Technology 617

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of drivers' standings.

References

1. Meissner, Johan (29 August 2012). "Engstler set to run third BMW in Asian races". TouringCarTimes. Mediaempire Stockholm AB. Archived from the original on 16 December 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
2. "FIA WTCC – Guia Race of Macau – Presented by SJM Provisional Entry List". Macau Grand Prix . Macau Grand Prix Committee. 10 October 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-12-14. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
3. Mills, Peter (6 November 2012). "Alberto Cerqui replaced by Kei Cozzolino for WTCC Macau". Autosport . Haymarket Publications . Retrieved 18 November 2012.
4. Elizalde, Pablo (4 July 2012). "Chevrolet announces it will leave the WTCC at the end of the 2012 season". Autosport . Haymarket Publications . Retrieved 18 November 2012.
5. "MONTEIRO TOPS THE FIRST SESSION IN MACAU". World Touring Car Championship . Kigema Sport Organisation. 15 November 2012. Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
6. "PRACTICE 1 – ROB HUFF SETS THE PACE". World Touring Car Championship . Kigema Sport Organisation. 16 November 2012. Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
7. "PRACTICE 2 – CHEVROLET DOMINATION". World Touring Car Championship . Kigema Sport Organisation. 16 November 2012. Archived from the original on 22 January 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
8. Auger, Matt (16 November 2012). "Huff secures fourth Macau pole". Touring-Cars.net. Andrew Abbott. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
9. "IT'S RAINING PENALTIES ON LOCAL RACERS". World Touring Car Championship . Kigema Sport Organisation. 16 November 2012. Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
10. Hudson, Neil (18 November 2012). "Rob Huff leads morning warm-up at Macau". TouringCarTimes. Mediaempire Stockholm AB. Archived from the original on 30 November 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
11. Mills, Peter (18 November 2012). "Yvan Muller beats Alain Menu as Rob Huff crashes". Autosport . Haymarket Publications . Retrieved 18 November 2012.
12. Mills, Peter (18 November 2012). "Rob Huff is champion despite Alain Menu winning finale". Autosport . Haymarket Publications . Retrieved 18 November 2012.

External links

World Touring Car Championship
Previous race: 2012 FIA WTCC Race of China	2012 World Touring Car Championship season	Next race: 2013 FIA WTCC Race of Italy
Previous race: 2011 Guia Race of Macau	Guia Race of Macau	Next race: 2013 Guia Race of Macau