Four months went by relatively fast and the WTCC is back in 2015 for it's eleventh season.
The location is the Termas de Rio Hondo, Argentina, the cove of the 2014 World Champion and local idol Jose' Maria Lopez.
El Pechito, who rose to the attention of the Citroen team two years ago on this track, had one goal in mind: start this season the same way he finished the last one. All the elements are there to make it happen: a dominant car that is still a couple steps above the competitors, a track that he knows inch by inch and that he calls home, a multitude of fans cheering for him.
The first sign that this was going to be a good week end for the Argentinian was the pole gained on Saturday against his fellow Citroen drivers by almost a second from Muller, Loeb and Ma.
Fifth position and last point assigned for the qualifying goes to Monteiro and his Honda.
Race 1 starts relatively clean, with Ma abandoning the head of the group with a very slow start and with Filippi and Thompson out in the first lap.
Bennani, with the private but still rocket fast Citroen, struggles to keep it cool and hits Huff on lap three. Result is a broken suspension for the British and an investigation pending on the Moroccan.
Valente goes wide on the following lap and crashes, while Coronel has a problem with his turbo system on lap 5 and is out as well.
The race is, at this point, split in two: The Citroen run for victory and the race for the best of the rest.
In the second group, the two Honda of Monteiro and Tarquini march in front, with a good come back from Michelisz up to P7. the other two Citroen of Bennani and Ma are respectively sixth and eight.
Not much happens in the last laps of the race, therefore Lopez, Muller and Loeb monopolize the podium, with the Honda of Monteiro and Tarquini right after them. A drive-through penalty inflicted on Bennani for the accident with Huff relegates him to 13th position.
Just the time for some handshake and to heal from the wounds of Race 1 and it's time to show up on the grid for the second race.
With the reversing of the first 10 cars qualified for Race 1, the grid sees Thompson, Coronel, D'Aste and Tarquini in the first two rows,while Loeb, Muller and Lopez in P8 P9 and P10.
At the start, Thompson has some problem that will push him to retire later on and D'Aste is pushed out of the track, on the mud, and his destiny will be the same as Thompson's.
At the first transit on the finish line the Citroen is already in the leading positions with Ma and Loeb. Coronel and Tarquini follow but the Chevy driver gets a little too aggressive trying to defend the position from the Italian attacks and he ends up on the grass and out of the race. As a result, the safety car makes it's first appearance of the season to give time to the marshals for some debris cleaning.
At this point Lopez climbed up to the fourth position which will become third when Ma, who run wide right before the safety car, has no choice but to stop for a quick radiator clean up to keep the engine temperature under control.
After three laps the safety car is in and only one lap after Tarquini can't contain the exuberance of the local idol Lopez who moves in P2.
Borkovic is out in lap 8 and Bennani moves from offender to victim when he gets hit by Muller on lap 10. The French will damage his car and will end the race in eleventh position.
The last five laps are all about Ma chasing Michelisz for 6th position ad the usual Honda duel between Monteiro and Tarquini, with the Portuguese stealing the third position with only one lap to go.
Loeb built enough gap to win with tranquility in front of Lopez who leads the Championship with 48 points out of 55. Third is the fast Monteiro, followed by Tarquini and Bennani.
It looks like the leitmotif of this season will be, again, "how the hell are we gonna beat the Citroen", with a open Championship dispute inside the French team. However, there are other 22 races on tracks that can favorite or no the Elysee of Loeb & Company, plus, the internal fight for the title has the capacity to keep in the run some of the outsiders, Honda in primis.
Our next appointment is in April, in Bennani's Morocco. Until then, as usual, stay tuned!
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