José María López led the drivers' championship coming into the round, sixty points ahead of teammate Yvan Muller.

The event was a late replacement for the FIA WTCC Race of the United States which was cancelled in June 2014 due to logistical issues.

Felipe De Souza joined Liqui Moly Team Engstler for the remained of the 2014 season, replacing Pasquale Di Sabatino.

Michael Soong joined Campos Racing in a TC2T SEAT León and Ma Qing Hua returned to Citroën Total WTCC.

[3] The first test session took place in wet conditions and Tiago Monteiro set the fastest time ahead of López and Robert Huff.

[6] Monteiro topped the first part of qualifying which was stopped twice; early on De Souza went off at the last corner and beached his Engstler BMW in the gravel trap.

James Thompson was eighth and his Lada teammate Huff was tenth and therefore took pole for race two with Tom Coronel starting alongside him.

Huff started on pole and narrowly beat Coronel into the first corner as Loeb jumped up to third ahead of Thompson who then lost another place to Michelisz.

Chilton had moved up to eighth since the start and had passed a struggling Muller, by half distance he was attacking Morbidelli for seventh although he would be unable to make further progress during the race.