All-round success for the Repsol drivers in the SEAT Sport team in the World Touring Car Championship, who have achieved their targets for the 2009 season in the final race of the year, held in the early hours of this morning at the urban circuit in Macau. Gabriele Tarquini has been crowned the 2009 World Champion, reissuing the title won a year ago by his team-mate Yvan Muller, who was second. Furthermore, his results were enough for the Spanish manufacturer, which wears the colours of Repsol, to take the manufacturers’ title.
Once again, praising the enormous team spirit, the Repsol drivers have finished a very complicated year in the best way possible. The weekend did not start well, as Gabriele Tarquini and Yvan Muller, in the end World Champion and runner-up, ended the qualifying in hospital, after a serious accident that left their cars in a bad state. After the mechanics’ efforts to repair the cars, and without serious injuries, the team’s five official drivers have implemented a perfect strategy today to secure the double.
In the first race, a faultless start from Tiago Monteiro, Jordi Gené and Gabriele Tarquini allowed them to take control of the situation in second, third and fourth place, without taking risks for the win and earn the points necessary to secure the first of the titles. In the end, Tarquini finished second, ahead of Gené, with Yvan Muller fifth and Monteiro sixth. This result mathematically awarded the title to one of the two drivers, although it had not yet been decided whether it would be Muller or Tarquini.
The second race was even more tactical, with Yvan Muller in third place, followed by Monteiro and Gené, and Gabriele Tarquini climbing positions to sixth. Gené was touched slightly, allowing Tarquini to overtake him and leaving the SEATs in formation, keeping their positions. An accident at the back of the pack, resulted in the race being cancelled two laps from the end, definitively confirming victory for Gabriele Tarquini in the drivers’ world championship and for SEAT in the manufacturers’.
With this win, the Repsol driver becomes the seventh Italian world champion in history, the first in eighteen years since Teo Fabi and following Nino Farina, Alberto Ascari, Mauro Baldi, Roberto Ravaglia and Massimo Biasion. Furthermore, he has also broken a spectacular record, becoming the oldest world champion in motor racing history, even beating Juan Manuel Fangio. This is the fifth World Championship title for the Spanish manufacturer, after those won in rallies in 1996, 1997 and 1998 with the Ibiza Kit Car, and those achieved in the World Touring Car Championship in 2008 and 2009 with the León TDI WTCC.
Gabriele Tarquini
“It’s extraordinary to win the title after so many years racing. I started the weekend with problems, but was able to recover and my mechanics did a fantastic job that allowed me to compete in good conditions in a race that was a unique opportunity for me, and which I couldn’t miss. The championship has been very tough and intense and to beat two rivals as good as Yvan Muller and Augusto Farfus it has been essential to score in every race.”
