Double points for Zanardi despite troubles.

Although his weekend was far from straightforward, Alex Zanardi was able to bring home a brace of points scoring finishes from the opening weekend of racing in the World Touring Car Championship in Brazil.

Zanardi qualified in tenth place in his Roal Motorsport run BMW E90 and finished the opening race in seventh place after a largely incident free race, which meant he took his place on the front row of the grid for race two.

However, any chance the Italian had of fighting for victory would disappear in the opening stages of the race when he was hit by the Chevrolet of Rob Huff on the run into the first corner. Although Huff was forced out as a result, Zanardi was able to continue but with the BMW having suffered some damage in the incident, he was unable to match the pace of the leaders and had to settle for sixth place.

"I am taking five points home from Brazil: not that bad, but I hoped for something more, especially from race two," the former F1 racer reflected. "We had some problems in finding a good set-up and this has partially affected my performance in qualifying.

"The clash with Huff at the beginning of race two compromised the setup of my car: the toe in was completely upset and the steering wheel was crooked, but things can happen in races. Rob is a very fair driver and he came immediately to me to apologise. Anyway, my start had not been very fast due to an engine problem that slowed me down for the whole race long.

"The weekend balance is positive anyway: it could have been better but, considered all these things, it could have been worse too."

Project manager Umberto Grano said he was pleased with Zanardi's performance from the weekend given the problems he faced, although he admitted that the team has work to do before the return to Europe for the second meeting of the season at Zandvoort in May.

"Zanardi had two good races: honestly I think that it wasn't possible to obtain more with the problems that today affected his car," he said. "In the next weeks we will have to work hardly on our cars to be more competitive at Zandvoort."