The FIA officially crowned José María ‘Pechito’ López Muller and Citroën as the 2014 FIA World Touring Car Champions at its Gala awards evening in Doha, today.

The tenth season of the FIA World Touring Car Championship saw the Argentine  clinching the Drivers’ Championship title on his first full year in the series, while Citroën won the Manufacturers’ Championship following its switch to racing after a long domination in rallying.

López, who has given Argentina its first car racing world title 57 years after Juan Manuel Fangio’s fifth one in F1, dominated the season at the wheel of a Citroën C-Elysée factory car. ‘Pechito’ kicked off in style, winning the first race at Marrakech, and since then he kept on building up a gap that eventually became big enough to give him the title at Suzuka, with one event still to be held. He also set new WTCC records for race victories (ten) and points (462) scored in one season.

With López uncatchable in the lead, his Citroën Total team-mates – the quadruple WTCC champion Yvan Muller and the nine-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb – filled the other podium positions for the Drivers’ Championship, while Norbert Michelisz emerged as the best of the rest in fourth position in his Zengö Motorsport Honda Civic.

“It has been an incredible season for me. For sure my goal was to fight for the World Championship, but I certainly did not expect to lead the classification from the beginning to the end, claim the title even before Macau and establish a new record for race victories. There are so many feelings in my heart, but firstly I want to say a big thank to my family, my girlfriend and my friends, for their support during all these years. And to the whole Citroën team and my team-mates. Without them, I wouldn’t be here. It meant a lot to me to win the title at Suzuka, where Ayrton Senna, my idol, was crowned F1 Champion twice. If there was a place where I wanted this to happen, it was here. Of course this made also a lot of people happy in Argentina. It was the first world title since Fangio. He was the one who made motor racing so popular at home, and it is a big honour for me to be bring a world title to my country and make my countrymen happy,” said López who will stay with Citroën to defend the title in 2015.

After so many World titles won in rally, Citroën was crowned Manufacturers’ Champion at the end of an impressive maiden season in racing. The team’s C- Elysée cars won 17 out of the 23 races held during the year and filled the top-three places in the Drivers’ Championship with López, Muller and Loeb.

Yves Matton, Team Principal Citroën Total, who collected the trophy, said: “We can say it has been a great year. A year that began, in fact, twenty months ago, when we started working on this project. Whether it was in the technical centre in Versailles or on the ground, the entire team spent a lot energy making sure we were ready for the start of the championship. With a well-designed car and a set of fantastic drivers, we have obtained some truly exceptional results. It was very emotional to claim a 1-2-3 in the Drivers’ Championship. José María López is a worthy World Champion for Citroën, Argentina and the FIA WTCC! We are happy and proud that we managed to help him to win the title; he is a guy who shines for both his performance and his human nature.”