Yvan Muller began his FIA World Touring Car Championship campaign in the best way possible with a lights-to-flag victory in the opening race of the season at Curitiba in Brazil.

The 38-year-old Frenchman, who was the series runner-up in 2007, signalled his intention to go one better this season as he led home Rickard Rydell by 0.792 seconds to give SEAT a one-two finish.

"Last season is behind me now," Muller told Eurosport. "We have to think of the future and this is the best way to start the future."

An action-packed race began as it meant to go on from the rolling start.

There was nothing untoward about the SEATS of Muller, Rydell and Gabriele all using their ultra-powerful turbodiesel engines to power to lock out the front three positions into the first corner.

Behind though, their team-mate Tiago Monteiro made a rocket start from seventh on the grid to get up to third.

But the Portuguese driver found himself squeezed out at the first corner and tapped two rivals, which sent five cars off the track and onto the concrete run-off area as well as leaving Monteiro to toddle back to the pits with broken front suspension.

The Chevrolets quickly took centre stage as Alain Menu - driving a hastily-repaired Lacetti after his heavy qualifying crash - tapped Jordi Gene off the track at turn one on the third lap, and was rewarded with broken suspension of his own for his trouble.

And at the very next corner his two team-mates made contact as Nicola Larini tapped Rob Huff wide in their battle for sixth. Huff somehow managed to control a lurid slide, but Larini was hit by Gene, putting him out on the spot with accident damage.

The melee brought out the safety car, and after two laps at slow speeds the race resumed with the Schnitzer BMWs of Augusto Farfus and Jorg Muller clearly faster than the SEATS through the corners, but struggling to stay with the Spanish machines on the straights.

Farfus finally made it by Tarquini and into third on lap eight, exiting turn five faster than his rival and, following a brief brush of wheels, dived by into the fast left-hander that followed.

Muller followed him through on the next lap and, when the Brazilian became held up by Rydell, got a run on him into turn six on the final lap, only to see the door firmly shut in his face - a move that forced him to settle for third.

Farfus was later excluded by the stewards because the "V" support for the fixation of the engine protection did not comply with the technical regulations.

That meant Jorg Muller was followed in fourth place by world champion Andy Priaulx, but the Briton had to work for it. Priaulx picked his way through the first-corner chaos to move up from 12th to eighth.

He then benefited from Huff's retirement as the Chevrolet driver's rear suspension broke to complete a miserable day for the American manufacturer.

And Priaulx then passed the SEATs of Tarquini and Gene on the penultimate lap to give him a decent grid spot for race two in his RBM BMW.

Tarquini and Gene followed him home while Felix Porteiro's finish looked to have given the Spanish ROAL BMW driver pole for race two under the reverse grid rule.

But Gene was later penalised 30 seconds for his contact with Menu, dropping him to 11th.

That promoted Porteiro to sixth and Tom Coronel to seventh, giving the SUNRED SEAT man pole for race two.

Eighth and the Independents class win to Weichers BMW driver Olivier Tielemans.

Jamie O'Leary / Eurosport