After touring around the world, the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) concluded the season with the Macau Grand Prix which is the oldest race event in Asia. The final round of the WTCC was coupled with the famous F3 race known as 'the race of the champions' and run on an exciting and challenging street circuit. During the race week, Macau was filled with the smell of burnt oil and tires accompanied by stirring engine noise.

ADVAN has been the official and sole tire supplier of the WTCC for these two years (the contract ends at the end of 2009) and highly appreciated for the performance of its products. ADVAN has also been supplying the control tires for the Macau Grand Prix F3 race for 25 years. This means that, for the road of Macau, ADVAN is the most knowledgeable tire manufacturer in the world.
　
Naturally, the most important topic in this final round at Macau was the contention for both the drivers' and manufacturers' championships in the third season of the WTCC. While BMW and SEAT remained in the manufacturers' title battle, the two favourite drivers for the title were Andy Priaulx of BMW and Yvan Muller of SEAT. The former driver had been the sole title holder of the WTCC because he had taken all the crowns since the inaugural year of the series. The latter had shown outstanding performance driving a diesel powered SEAT Leon which was introduced this year. Both of them carried the maximum weight of 60kg on their cars for this final event and they were tied in the drivers point standings.
　
Under a clear sky, the four time winner so far this season, Alain Menu in a Chevrolet Lacetti, sat on the pole position for Race 1 (the 21st round of the series). Although Muller closely followed him and took the second grid, Priaulx made a mistake in the qualifying session on the previous day and had to settle far back in twelfth.
　
It was obvious that the situation was advantageous to Muller and, soon after making a good start, he took the lead position at the Mandarin Oriental bend. Then he cleared Lisboa, where so many accidents occur every year, as the race leader, Menu and Augusto Farfus followed. Meanwhile, Priaulx was completely packed in the midfield group where he started the race. When the midpoint had passed, on lap 7, he couldn't come up better than eleventh as overtaking was extremely difficult on the street course of Macau.
　
Muller seemed to be obtaining the best possible result for his title quest. But his car suddenly slowed down on the mountain side of lap 8 when he was running first and had to give up the race due to trouble in the fuel system. In addition to this, there was another twist on the final lap. On the run down to Lisboa, Farfus, running third, had contact with hard charging Gabriele Tarquini and the former lost control, hitting a guard rail.
　
Eventually, race 1 was won by the pole sitter, Menu. Remarkably, Priaulx finished the race in eighth thanks to a few retirements ahead of him.
　
After only a 15 minute interval, it was the time for the start of race 2 (the 22nd round) that was the true conclusion of the season. But unfortunately, Muller couldn't sit on the starting grid of this race because of the mechanical trouble that caused him to retire from race 1. This made a quite favorable point situation for Priaulx as he now had 82 points and Muller wasn't able to add any points to his tally of 81 points. The third-placed James Thompson had only 73 points and his chance for reversing the situation was very slim.
　
Moreover, since Priaulx's finishing position of race 1 was eighth, he was given the polo position for race 2 because of the reverse grid system. And he made the most of his starting position to get away from his rivals. On the other hand, Thompson gradually lost his momentum after gaining a few places in the early stage and had to concentrate on followers behind him.
　
Consequently, the final race of the season turned out to be a piece of cake for Priaulx and he took the checkered flag after leading throughout the race. At the same time, he secured the drivers' title for three years running since the foundation of the WTCC and brought the manufacturers' championship to BMW in as many years.
　
The YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy, for which only privateers were eligible, was won by Stefano D'Aste. Proteam Motorsport became the winning team.

Macau Ghia Circuit / Temporary street course (China)
The Macau Grand Prix was initiated by the Portuguese's in 1954. The oldest race event in Asia has been run on the exciting and challenging temporary street course. This 6,117m circuit consists of two sections; the wider and faster ocean side and the narrower winding roads of the mountain side. There is virtually no escape zone at all on both sides and a slight mistake can lead to critical damage to a car.
　
Specifically, the Lisboa corner at the entrance to the mountain side is renowned as a choke point of the course which often induces multi-car accidents. As the circuit is usually used as public roads, the surfaces have considerable undulations and drivers are required to handle them carefully.