After a longer than usual summer break, the 2009 FIA World Touring Car Championship now enters the closing phase of the season. Of remaining four rounds (eight races), the penultimate and final rounds are the Asian stages in Japan and Macau. So this German round was one of only two events to be held in Europe this year, along with the next Italian round.

Since it was the home race for BMW, a lot of spectators came to see the races because they were probably encouraged by the German manufacturer's good form in Oschersleben these years. But the qualifying session on Saturday was totally fouled up by the weather.

As soon as the first session got underway, the rain started to fall. Because of this sudden change of track conditions, the meaningful lap times could be set only in early minutes of the session and some of the top contenders missed out on it. As a result, the likes of the championship leader, Yvan Muller of SEAT Sport, and Andy Priaulx of BMW Team UK, who was in third in the title contention, unexpectedly failed to get to Q2.

This meant there were some surprising faces in the second session, including an Independent Trophy contender, Marin Colak in SEAT Leon TFSI, and Lada's Jaap Van Lagen. This was the very first time for the Russian manufacturer that one of their cars went into Q2 as a top ten qualifier.

The drying track saw the fierce battle for the pole position in the closing phase of the session, which eventually was won by Gabriele Tarquini of SEAT Sport. Colak did a good job again and beat the Tarquini's team mate, Rickard Rydell, in a factory SEAT Leon TDi to take up the second grid.

Driving a Lada's new Priora model for the first time, Van Lagen also registered a respectable qualifying time and sat on the fourth grid which was a good starting position for Race 1.

The sky didn't clear up on Sunday and the start of Race 1 was delayed to wait for better track conditions. After a rolling lap, the whole field approached to Turn 1 in a four-car-wide or even a five-car-wide pack, using up full width of the track.

This inevitably caused a few incidents, especially in the first half of the circuit which mainly consist of tight corners and a chicane. For instance, Jorg Muller of BMW Team Germany spun off in the opening lap, which delayed Augusto Farfus in a sister car, although the Brazilian was able to continue. Besides them, some more cars were damaged or taken out of the contention due to contact or course off but the race continued without requiring the Safety Car.

When the eventful opening lap was completed, Tarquini was leading and Tom Coronel in a SUNRED Engineering's SEAT, Rydell and Priaulx followed. But the star of the race was Priaulx. He moved up to third on Lap 2, then to second on the next lap, before closing the gap to the race leader.

On Lap 4, the championship leader, Yvan Muller, hit a barrier and was forced to retire due to a damaged suspension.

Tarquini's lead was now reduced to only 0.673 second at the end of Lap 5 and the top two ran down the pit straight in tail-to-nose. Priaulx finally took the top slot at the last corner on Lap 6. The Italian tried to regain the position on the following straightaway but the BMW driver denied his attempt when the two entered Turn 1. From then on, Priaulx kept the lead position throughout and scored his first win since the last year's French round with his typical hard pushing drive.

The battle for fifth also attracted much attention of spectators. Van Lagen was running in fifth but Nicola Larini and Farfus were giving him huge pressure from behind. On Lap 13, Larini's Chevrolet Cruze stuck to the Lada's tail but the Dutchman doggedly refused to give way with hardest possible braking which caused a lot of tire smoke.

When they entered the final lap, the first ever championship points for the Russian manufacturer looked to be within reach. However, then Van Lagen was hit by Larini from behind and went off the track, which sent him out of points! But it was obvious that he can expect more opportunities to collect some points in near future anyway. Afterwards, the Italian driver was penalized for this move by having 30 seconds added to his finishing time.

YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy class winner was Coronel who finished in fourth overall, only a step away from podium, after making a great jump up at the start.

According to the reverse grid rule for the top eight finishers of Race 1, two Independent class BMWs sat on the front row for Race 2, Franz Engstler on the pole position along with Stefano D'Aste in second.

At the standing start for Race 2, as the red lights went off, Jorg Muller took the outermost line, putting two wheels almost on the green, and managed to gain a lot of positions from the back of the field.

Although there was no position change in the leading pack, Farfus moved up to second at Turn 1 on Lap 2. With the winner of Race 1, Priaulx, taking up fourth, now the top four slots were occupied by the BMW cars.

The Independent runner, Engstler, was leading the race for a while against the factory backed drivers but, on Lap 4, he was captured by Farfus at Turn 1. Then, Priaulx followed the Brazilian's path to move up to second and a duel between them, representing two BMW manufacturer teams based in Germany and U.K., began.

In the second half of the race, the top two pulled away from the others and continued the close battle. But Farfus was able to hold off Priaulx's attack and stayed in the lead until the finish to grab his fourth victory of the season.

YOKOHAMA Independent Trophy was won by Coronel again, as Engstler had a mechanical problem and D'Aste was given a drive through penalty for a breach of the starting procedure rules.