Gabriele Tarquini resisted intense pressure from Andy Priaulx to win the second round of the FIA World Touring Car Championship at Curitiba, Brazil.

The Italian SEAT driver, who started from third place on the grid, burst through to take the lead from Felix Porteiro's ROAL BMW halfway through the opening lap.

And he then held off British hero Priaulx - who was stuck on his bootlid for the second half of the race - to cap his 46th birthday in style by just 0.327 seconds.

"It was the best present I could give to myself," Tarquini told Eurosport.

"The first race was very hard, but I made a fantastic start, first after two corners was a surprise, but that's all thanks to the TDI. Then I was able to control - despite the pressure - both the BMWs."

Tarquini's run at Porteiro was made easier by a terrible start from polesitter Tom Coronel, and by the fact that he - and the rest of the works SEAT drivers - were able to start the race on fresh tyres after keeping them aside during qualifying.

It put the Spanish armada in control early on, but saw them force to use defensive tactics later in the race as the BMWs began to make their move forward.

Both Porteiro and RBM driver Priaulx made it by Coronel at the start and were able to use the SUNRED driver as a buffer between themselves and the Schnitzer cars of Augusto Farfus and Jorg Muller.

As both the Brazilian and the German edged by first Coronel and then Rickard Rydell - who struggled the most with his tyres going off - Priaulx chose the moment to pass Porteiro, which he did on the inside of turn one at the start of lap nine.

The triple world champion immediately latched onto Tarquini's tail and was far quicker through the corners. But he found himself down on power on the main straight and was forced to settle for second behind the Italian, who won for the fifth time in his career.

Porteiro completed the podium with Jorg Muller fourth after he managed to pass his namesake Yvan Muller on the penultimate lap.

The latter Muller though, who won the opening race of the day, maintained his championship lead, albeit at a reduced margin of one point from Tarquini.

Sixth went to Farfus, but he had been lying fourth until a mystery problem forced him to slow on the back straight on lap 11 and then strangely cured itself.

Rydell trundled home in seventh with Jordi Gene - who started from 12th after being penalised 30 seconds from his race one result - completing the points for SEAT.

Coronel and Alain Menu's Chevrolet completed the top ten, but the Swiss driver's result was as good as it got for the American manufacturer as his team-mates Nicola Larini and Rob Huff again got together early on as they had done in race one.

Larini was able to continue to finish 12th, but Huff's race was run as he retired with broken rear suspension at the end of the opening lap.

Jamie O'Leary / Eurosport