The curtain of the 2007 FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) has risen in Brazil. The event returned to the venue, Curitiba Circuit, last July when the ninth and tenth rounds of the season were held.

ADVAN has supported WTCC cars with the control tires since 2006. Because of the high performance it provides, regardless of the difference in transmission layouts of competing race cars, all the drivers and pit crews can trust them and admire their ability to produce exciting battles everywhere.

The qualifying session on Saturday had a very close fight in the last minutes. A few minutes before the session ended, Augusto Farfus, who moved to the BMW Team Deutschland from Alfa Romeo (N.Technology) this year, marked the best lap time and expressed his joy in the car's cockpit over winning what he thought was the pole position. Immediately after that, however, Jorg Muller topped his teammate's time by just 0.055 seconds and denied Farfus's pole position on his home soil.

The WTCC kept its 2-race format on Sunday. But the time interval between the first race and the second one was longer than that of last year and the format of the race start has also changed, which means the first one starts with a rolling-start, the second one with a standing-start.

Although the WTCC has adopted a penalty weight system, all competitors are on an equal basis in the season opener. Therefore, you can see the true potential of each car and the skill of each driver in this opening round.

The first race was totally dominated by BMW drivers. Last year in Curitiba, SEAT made a one-two finish in race one, but BMW's got the upper hand this year.

In the early laps, Andy Priaulx, who started in third on the grid, came up to the second and chased the pole sitter Muller. But the German had enough advantage to hold Priaulx, and eventually won the first race. Farfus finished in third, which completed the domination of the podium by BMW drivers in the opening round.

After a longer interval, Yvan Muller of SEAT sat on the pole position for the second race of the day, as the result of the first race determines the starting grid for the second one and the top eight were lined up in the reverse grid system.

However, it was BMW again that occupied the front of the pack shortly after the start. They showed a fast pace and, as early as lap two, Farfus caught up to the back of the Frenchman's SEAT. Then the Brazilian fully utilised slipstreaming and overtook the pole sitter at Turn 1 of lap three and the move made the home crowd cheer the local hero loudly.

Further back, Priaulx and Jorg Muller were also pushing the SEATs in front of them quite hard. Despite being the independent class winner in 2006, Tom Coronel could not hold them and BMW passed him easily in lap five, then overtook the SEAT's too, which built up BMW's 1-2-3 formation again.

The race leader Farfus pulled clear of the pack in the second half of the race and took the checkered flag in front of his home crowd in Curitiba. Priaulx finished in second and J.Muller in third, which meant BMW's total domination on the podium in both races of the season opener.

Born in Germany on 3 September, 1969.

Started to compete in racing kart when he was fifteen years old. His first car race was the Formula Opel Lotus Championship series race in 1989.
He stepped up to Formula Three soon and won the Macau Grand Prix in 1993. In the following year, eleven wins in the German Formula Three Championship made him the series champion.
In 1995, he took part in the German Super Touring Car Championship driving a BMW 320i and scored many wins in various race series including the FIA F3000 and the American Le Mans Series, as well as the prestigious 24 hours endurance races such as Spa-Francorchamps, Le Mans and Daytona.
Since 2002, he has participated in the FIA European Touring Car Championship as a member of the BMW team. Since then, with an overall win in the Nurburgring 24 hours on a BMW M3 GTR and a win in the Macau Grand Prix Ghia Race with a BMW 320i, he has become known as 'the master of the BMW race car'.
He has regularly driven in the WTCC since its inception, and ranked fifth with three wins in 2005 and won four races in 2006 when he finished the season in second.

Born in Curitiba, Brazil on 3 September, 1983.

His very first competition in motor sport was a motocross race in 1991 when he entered a 50cc mini-motocross class.
The following year, he started to run in Brazilian national racing kart events, and made an impression with his overwhelming speed.
In 1999, he left his homeland and moved to Italy to gain more experience in racing karts and junior formula cars.
After he started his full-scale challenge in car races in 2000, he stepped up from Formula Renault to the European F3000 series without a hitch, and took the crown of the European F3000 in 2003 with four wins.
He drove an Alfa Romeo in the inaugural FIA European Touring Car Championship (FIA ETCC) in 2004, and scored his first win in a touring car in a WTCC round which started the following year. Last year, he won three races with Alfa Romeo in the series and contended for the title until the final round, eventually finishing the season in third place.
For the 2007 season, he moved to the BMW camp and won the second race of the season opener which was held in his home town of Curitiba, while receiving huge cheers from the Brazilian crowd.

Curitiba Circuit (Brazil)

The permanent race track is on the outskirts of Curitiba which is one of the largest cities in southern Brazil.
This clockwise-turn circuit has a length of 3,695m and the first part of the course consists of some long corners. The best overtaking points would be Turn 1 and the ess immediately after that.
The fastest lap by a WTCC car is 1'24"761 by A.Farfus in the qualifying session of the 2006 event.