The World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) series came at its midpoint of the season. The venue of the eleventh and twelfth rounds was Estoril Circuit, Portugal. As the last year's Portuguese round was held at the street track in Porto, this was the first ever WTCC event in Estoril.

It is well-known that the weather changes quickly in the Portuguese race track because it is situated close to the sea. Fortunately, however, the weather in the race weekend was generally fine and the spectators enjoyed the intensified battle on the dry conditions.

Nicola Larini (Chevrolet) set the fastest time in the qualifying session on Saturday. The second quickest was Rickard Rydell who was third in the drivers' championship, followed by his teammate Jordi Gene, both driving the diesel-turbo powered SEAT Leon TDIs. As Larini's teammate Rob Huff sat on the fourth grid, the first two rows of the starting grids for Race 1 (the eleventh race of the series) were occupied by the front-wheel-drive cars.

Immediately after the start of Race 1, the two SEAT drivers began to attack to the pole sitter, Larini. It was Rydell who stole the top slot at the first corner, thanks to his nearly perfect start, while Huff tried to move up from outside of the corner but he came in contact with Gene and lost his position.

On the other hand, despite starting from the lowly eighth grid, the second placed driver in the championship, Yvan Muller, also passed Larini on the opening lap and formed an one-two of the diesel powered Leons with his Swedish teammate.

But the Chevrolet driver hit back soon and regained the second place on Lap 3 after a few scuffles for the position. Then he started to push the race leader, Rydell, from behind and they were involved in the close battle which was typical of the WTCC races.

At the midpoint of the twelve lap race, the top two cars pulled away from the others, while Gene, Andy Priaulx (BMW) and Huff unfolded the battle for the fourth place behind Yvan Muller who was in third. Those three cars went like a train for a few laps but, on Lap 10, Huff overtook Priaulx when the latter made a small mistake in an attempt to attack Gene, before he also went by the Spaniard at Turn 1 on the next lap to come up in fourth.

As for the leading two cars, Rydell eventually took the checkered flag with his SEAT Leon TDI after he kept the top slot for all twelve laps. It was his second win of the season since the third round at Puebra, Mexico.

Race 2 (the twelfth race of the series) was also run under the clear sky and on the dry track surface. After a four hour interval from the start of Race 1, the competitors sat on the starting grids which were formed according to the reverse grid rule for the top eight finishers of Race 1 as usual.

The star of the second race of the day was the Portuguese ace Tiago Monteiro. The another SEAT Leon TDI driver took the lead position at the start from the second grid and, being cheered by his home crowd, he never gave way to anyone until the finish on the home soil. Incidentally, this was his second win of the season after taking the first one in the Mexican round just as the case of the Race 1 winner, Rydell.

The sheer speed of the turbo-diesel powered SEAT Leon TDIs was prominent again in this Portuguese round as it had been in the early stage of the season. However, the reigning champion Priaulx and Alain Menu of Chevrolet were the winners of the last year's British round at Brands Hatch which is the next stop of the 2008 WTCC series. The hot and hard battle for the championship will certainly continue in the second half of the season.