The FIA World Touring Car Championship made its third consecutive annual visit to Japan since 2008. There was a special test session on Friday for the race week and the exciting exhaust noise of FIA Super 2000 spec cars reverberated in Okayama International Circuit for the first time in a year.

The Okayama round had been run on the wet track for two consecutive years and everybody had fretted over the weather forecast again this year, as a typhoon came close to Japan's mainland during the race weekend. Eventually, and unfortunately, when the race started on Sunday, the track was soaked by rain for the third year running.

The qualifying session was dominated by the BMW drivers because their cars were good at the technical circuits like Okayama. In Q1 section, two factory drivers of the German manufacturer and Colin Turkington on the same car set the top three qualifying times. Then fine team play by August Farfus who gave a tow to his teammate Andy Priaulx worked in Q2. As a result, Priaulx secured the pole position for Race 1 with his best lap time 1'36"972 which was a new track record and he was the only driver who got into the 36" bracket.

The sky was overcast on Sunday morning. Although the support races in the morning hours were run on the dry surface, raindrops began to fall during the pit walk around lunch time.

The formation lap for Race 1 started at half past two. The 27 car field led by the pole sitter, Priaulx, drove around the rain soaked track, churning up a lot of water spray behind their cars. Because this was the first time for them to drive on the wet surface this weekend, the race began with the Safety Car start.

After two laps led by the Safety Car, the signal lamps turned green and proper racing got under way. When the field rushed into Turn 1 with a thick and huge cloud of water spray, some mishaps were inevitable and it was Tiago Monteiro who pulled the trigger of multi-car excursion from the paved surface on Lap 1.

Meanwhile, starting from the third grid, Rob Huff on a Chevrolet Cruze made a vigorous move on Farfus and managed to get the second place at Attwood Curve after a side-by-side run for a few corners.

The Okayama race track hadn't been a happy hunting ground for the American marque and one third place finish was their best result here so far. Fighting for the manufacturers' championship this year, however, Chevrolet was riding on the momentum even at the Japanese track and Huff became one of the stars of the race.

On Lap 5, Huff caught up to Priaulx and dove into the latter's inside at Turn 1, the right hander. But both of them didn't gave way each other and entered Turn 2, the next left hander, running side-by-side, now the BMW driver on the inside. Then Huff had a tense moment when his car had nearly gone into a sideways spin but he skillfully caught it and stayed in second. This didn't hinder the Briton from continuing to push hard and he finally managed to overtake Priaulx at Viper Corner to take the lead.

Making most of the advantage of his front wheel drive car in the slippery conditions, Huff was able to remain in the lead position and secured his second victory of the season since the Czech round. This was the Chevrolet's first ever win in Japan and the second podium finish in Okayama for Huff who scored a third place finish in the last year's Race 1.

Priaulx ended the race in second but still kept his title hope alive. Yvan Muller steadily took third place. Getting on the last corner of the podium was enough for him to remain in his position as the championship leader.

In the YOKOHAMA Independents Trophy class, Yukinori Taniguchi driving a Chevrolet Lacetti became the first ever race winner as a Japanese driver. Starting from the 20th grid, he steadily moved up through the field and took the lead position of the class on Lap 4 by overtaking Sergio Hernandez who was the championship leader of the Independents Trophy.

On top of this, the Japanese driver caught up the tail of Tom Coronel's SEAT and actually got ahead of him at Viper Corner on Lap 10. Then he encountered a big over steer at Redman Corner but narrowly stayed on the track to continue to regain the position from Coronel who passed him by during that moment. And Taniguchi's persistence bore fruit, as he made a move at the hairpin turn at the end of the back straight and overtook the Dutch on Lap 12. He ultimately finished the race in 11th overall.

When the second race of the day was about to start, the rain got heavier and the track became even wetter.

The reversed grid rule gave the pole position to the eighth place finisher of Race 1, Michel Nykjaer in a SEAT Leon TDi, followed by Gabriele Tarquini in the same car from the Spanish marque. As the track conditions seemed to be worse than before, the race was started under the Safety Car run, instead of using the normal standing start procedure.

When racing began on Lap 3, Nykjaer immediately pulled away but there was a fierce fight for the positions in the following field. The battle surely thrilled the spectators with some dog fights and superb race craft displayed by the WTCC drivers.

The best example was that between Priaulx and Huff. Huff got ahead of his rival at Redman Corner on Lap 3 but the situation was reversed by Priaulx at Hobbs on the same lap. Then, on Lap 4, after another overtaking by the Chevrolet driver at Attwood Curve, Priaulx made a rare mistake at the hairpin curve and was forced to end his race in the gravel bed.

On Lap 7, Farfus, who started from the fifth grid, moved up to third by passing Colin Turkington from his inside at Attwood. However, a cease-fire was enforced on the next lap because the Safety Car came out to clear out a halted car on the track.

The race resumed on Lap 9. The field went through the first few corners safely but the race leader, Nykjaer, went off the track at Attwood Curve and lost a lot of ground, probably due to huge pressure after losing a four second gap during the Safety Car period. This was a great gift for Taruquini running in second and now he took over the lead position.

This should have been very important race win for the Italian to turn the table in the championship fight but, surprisingly, he threw it away by himself when he also made a mistake at Hobbs Corner on Lap 11. He crashed his car into the tire barrier and wasn't able to continue.

Now the race leader was Farfus. He had a 1.6 second gap with Turkington in second at that time and managed to maintain the gap during the closing laps. Meanwhile, Muller in third had been pushing the Briton hard from behind but he eased it as soon as he knew the two main championship rivals, Priaulx and Tarquini, went out of race. For the Frenchman, the rest was a cruising for the third place finish.

On the penultimate lap, Henry Ho's BMW spun in between Turn 1 and 2 and halted there on the track with his engine stalled. This required the Safety Car to come out again and the eventful 16 lap race came to a close under the Safety Car run. Farfus repeated his Race 2 victory at Okayama last year, followed by Turkington and Muller who rounded up the top three on the podium.

YOKOHAMA Independents Trophy was won by Darryl O'Young in a Chevrolet Lacetti. This meant a double victory by the Bamboo Racing's drivers, after Yukinori Taniguchi won the class in Race 1, and the team certainly had the happiest weekend ever here in Okayama.