Yann Ehrlacher scored a breakthrough maiden FIA World Touring Car Championship victory at WTCC Race of Argentina, converting a career-first standing start pole position into victory number one for him and the privateer RC Motorsport team.

The 21-year-old nephew of four-time WTCC champion Yvan Muller led away from the line only for contact with Tom Chilton to drop him back to second place. However, event officials deemed that the Sébastien Loeb Racing driver had gained an unfair advantage and handed Chilton a five-second time penalty, which dropped him from first to fourth at the finish of the Opening Race.

Nicky Catsburg made the most of his DHL pole position to lead the Main Race only to suffer a front-left puncture for the second race running. That let in Norbert Michelisz for his second consecutive win as factory Honda team-mate Tiago Monteiro gained the edge in the title chase with the runner-up spot. Heading into the summer break, Monteiro leads Thed Björk by an increased margin of 12 points with Michelisz up to third despite a non-score in the Opening Race following a puncture.

Björk’s Main Race podium gave the works Polestar Cyan Racing team some reason for cheer after Catsburg’s day of woe and a retirement for Néstor Girolami in the Opening Race following the onset of an electrical issue. With Honda out-scoring its rival make, it's the Japanese firm that now leads the World Touring Car Championship for Manufacturers heading to the next event in China in the autumn. Catsburg, whose frustration was compounded when he stopped to change a second puncture in the Main Race, bagged the TAG Heuer Best Lap Trophy for his early push.

Elsewhere, Rob Huff was twice in the top 10 from his lowly grid spot but is WTCC Trophy lead has been swallowed up with Mehdi Bennani now first on countback with he, Tom Chilton and Huff all tied on 87 points. John Filippi extended his point-scoring run with eighth in the Opening Race, while Ryo Michigami charged through from P16 to P10 for his first points since the season-opening WTCC Race of Morocco.

Tom Coronel was a points finisher in both races, while American racer Kevin Gleason scored twice in the WTCC Trophy. Zsolt Dávid Szabó acquitted himself well on his WTCC debut, finishing P13 and P15 for Zengő Motorsport. His team-mate, Dániel Nagy, finished ahead in both counters.
Yann Ehrlacher (Opening Race winner): “It’s a very nice feeling and I can’t really believe it. It was a tough race. I got a little hit from Tom at the beginning so I lose a place to him."

"I was pushing a lot because Mehdi was pushing from behind. Winning because Tom [Chilton] got a penalty is not fair racing but it’s a win so I take it.”

Norbert Michelisz (Main Race winner): “I was a bit down after the Opening Race collecting zero points and I knew I had to push. I really wanted to take Nicky at the start but he did the perfect getaway from the line and I wasn’t able to catch him."

"Then I tried to push but up until his puncture I was never in a position to really overtake. I’m sorry for him but happy for us, second Main Race win for me in a row and some really good points for the championship.”

Nicky Catsburg won a dramatic battle for the DHL Pole Position at FIA WTCC Race of Argentina this afternoon, crossing the timing beam as he took to the grass in a dramatic final-turn powerslide.

Driving a Volvo S60 Polestar, Catsburg was the last of five drivers to hunt down pole in the Qualifying Q3 shootout and gave it all to beat Norbert Michelisz (Honda Civic WTCC) by 0.184s in a thrilling conclusion to qualifying around the 4.806-kilometre Circuito Termas de Río Hondo.

It was the second top spot of the Dutchman’s WTCC career and makes him the fifth different racer to qualify at the front in 2017, such is the wide-open nature of this year’s World Touring Car Championship.

“The lap was definitely good,” said Catsburg, whose previous pole was in Russia last season. “The whole day went very well already in FP1 and FP2, noticing we were quite fast. We made small improvements to the car and the team did a really good job with that, which showed in qualifying although it wasn’t easy, not at all. The lap was close to being the fastest we could do."

"The last corner was spectacular to go onto the grass when we kept pushing, which made the difference and I’m very happy with pole position and the five points I get for the championship, which is very close.”

Michelisz said: “Second place was the maximum that was achievable today. The team has done a fantastic job to make the car excellent from the first lap of FP1, but we had a little issue with the brakes that meant we had to change the discs and pads between Q2 and Q3 and this maybe had an effect on the performance. Second is still a very good place to start from and gives me some very important bonus points for the championship.”

Tiago Monteiro took three bonus points for going third quickest, which extends his title advantage to six points over Thed Björk, who was fifth fastest, one place behind Argentine ace and leading WTCC Trophy contender Esteban Guerrieri.

Home hero Néstor Girolami, Mehdi Bennani, Tom Chilton, Ryo Michigami, Yann Ehrlacher, John Filippi and Tom Coronel all made it through to Q2 but the session ended at the Q1 phase for Rob Huff, Dániel Nagy, WTCC newcomer Zsolt Dávid Szabó and Kevin Gleason.

Huff’s early elimination was a shock with the former world champion blaming a lock-up – which flat-spotted his tyres ahead of his final run – for losing out. By finishing Q2 in P10, Ehrlacher will start Sunday’s Opening Race from the reverse-grid pole, a WTCC career first for the RC Motorsport driver, nephew of four-time world champion Yvan Muller.

WTCC Race of Argentina features two races on Sunday, the shorter Opening Race and the longer Main Race, which awards more championship points. The 11-lap Opening Race is scheduled to start at 15h00 local time with the Main Race, which takes place over 13 laps, from 16h15.

Thed Björk, Nicky Catsburg and Néstor Girolami combined to give Team Volvo Polestar its fifth Manufacturers Against the Clock victory of 2017 to claim 12 more points in its bid to win the FIA World Touring Car Championship for makes.

In the Tour de France-inspired time trial, they beat the Team Honda line-up of Norbert Michelisz, Ryo Michigami and Tiago Monteiro over two laps of the the 4.806-kilometre Circuito Termas de Río Hondo although a turbo boost issue for Michigami meant it wasn’t the usual close fight.

Afterwards, Alexander Murdzevski Schedvin, Head of Motorsport at Polestar, singled out home hero Girolami for particular praise.

“In motorsport the closest you can come to a team effort is really the MAC3 concept and it started with a lot of hard work in the Free Practice sessions,” he said.

“That led to our pole position and MAC3 win. Bebu [Girolami] is our secret weapon on this track doing a lot of additional work, which is not so evident because everybody is looking at his result alone."

"But he’s doing a great job for the team as you can see from the job we’ve done today. We’re really happy about the promise of the team and to do well on this track." He added

Ryuchi Furukawa, Large Project Leader WTCC Development, Honda R&D, said: “We’ve shown very strong pace in qualifying with Norbi and Tiago, although we aimed for a one-two."

"Ryo has also been strong too. He does not know the circuit and lost a lot of track time in practice and qualifying, so his Q1 lap especially was very strong. We changed his engine after FP2 because of an oil-feed issue and then had a boost-pressure issue in qualifying, which we thought we’d fixed in Q1, but which returned for Q2 and MAC3 unfortunately.”

Zsolt David Szabo’s impressive performances in the FIA European Touring Car Cup have been rewarded with a step up to the FIA World Touring Car Championship with Zengo Motorsport for WTCC Race of Argentina later this month.

Szabo follows Norbert Michelisz, the ex-Zengo driver turned factory Honda contender, as a former online racer to be handed a dream opportunity to race in the WTCC via a stint in the ETCC.

He will make his global series debut at Termas de Río Hondo from 14-16 July with fellow Zengo Motorsport young hopefuls Ferenc Ficza and Norbert Nagy expected to take it in turns to race the team’s second Honda Civic alongside their fellow Hungarian Dániel Nagy.

Aurelien Panis, who has raced for Zengo in the WTCC since the start of the season, is leaving the team to continue his learning year in front-wheel-drive machinery and will race a Honda in another series with more details to be announced by the French driver shortly.

Szabó, meanwhile, has been on impressive form in his rookie ETCC season, the 21-year-old taking his maiden victory in Vila Real last month after scoring his first podium at the Hungaroring in May in a Zengő-run SEAT.

Zengo Motorsport Team Principal Zoltán Zengő said: “Zsolt has impressed us with his pace and potential and ability to learn new tracks and adapt to new situations very quickly."

"As a team that takes pride from the work it has done in giving opportunities to young talents and nurturing their careers, we are very pleased to give Zsolt this opportunity in the WTCC and excited to watch him progress. It will be tough but there's no better way to learn and he’ll be given all the help possible to aid his transition.

“While we are committed to running a second car alongside Dániel Nagy for the rest of the season, we are considering giving two of our other young drivers, Ferenc Ficza and Norbert Nagy, the chance to do a WTCC race and we’ll make an announcement on this in due course.”