Yann Ehrlacher won an action-packed first race at El Pinar in the joint Kumho FIA TCR World Tour/TCR South America event, while his title rival Norbert Michelisz rescued a vital fifth place to maintain his lead in the standings despite being involved in several scrapes in the closing stages of the race.
Ehrlacher led the way from pole position ahead of Mikel Azcona, with Michelisz just behind them in third. The race had barely got started before the safety car was called after the Honda of Marco Butti required recovery, with the Italian losing out with contact with Ma Qing Hua, Juan Manuel Casella and Norberto Fontana as there was a four-wide battle on the pit straight. Another collision involved the back-markers Thiago Vivacqua, Fabio Cadagrande and Guilherme Reischl.
The race resumed on lap five, with Michelisz losing a spot at T12 to Thed Björk. Ehrlacher and Azcona at this point were in a batlte of their own, pulling away from Björk, before the race was held behind the safety car again following an incident involving Fontana and Galid Osman. Fontana returned to the pits with damage, while Osman’s CUPRA stopped on circuit with broken front-right suspension. A few energetic final laps followed at the restart as the field were bunched up again.
On lap 14, Santiago Urrutia lined up a pass on Michelisz at the hairpin, first going for the outside, before switching back to the inside, making contact into the corner with Michelisz knocked wide and Urrutia taking the place. This also allowed Michelisz’s teammate Néstor Girolami through into sixth, but the Argentine attempted to give the spot back at the hairpin a lap later, but with no grip around the outside this allowed Ma past the Hungarian into sixth, while Esteban Guerrieri had the chance to go around the outside into T1 and claim seventh. Ma then went wide at T8, allowing Guerrieri to make a move past, before Ma then clipped Guerrieri into a half-spin at T9, allowing Michelisz back ahead of the pair of them. Guerrieri was now still in seventh, while Ma dropped back with damage to finish in 15th position. On the final lap, Girolami managed to successfully hand back fifth spot to Michelisz at the line, handing his teammate vital points in the drivers’ championship.
Pedro Cardoso successfully made a key move of the race with four laps to go to grab the lead in TCR South America in his PMO Racing Peugeot ahead of Juan Ángel Rosso’s Paladini Racing Toyota, with Rosso and Matías Rossi completing the podium in the class.
In the drivers’ standings, Michelisz leads on 222 points, 21 clear of Ehrlacher whose victory moved him back up to second, while Guerrieri is third, 27 points behind.
Rosso has retaken the lead in TCR South America, with Cardoso five points behind him, while the previous leader Raphael Reis has dropped to third, 21 points adrift.
El Pinar – Race 1
- Yann Ehrlacher (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, Lynk & Co 03 FL), 17 laps
- Mikel Azcona (BRC Squadra Corse, Hyundai Elantra N), 0.607
- Thed Björk (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, Lynk & Co 03 FL), 2.639
Championship points – TCR World Tour
- N. Michelisz, 222 pts; 2. Y. Ehrlacher, 201; 3. E. Guerrieri 195
Championship points – TCR South America
- J.Á. Rosso, 218 pts; 2. P. Cardoso 213; 3. R. Reis, 197
Further information and images @ www.fiatcrworldtour.com
Schedule
Sunday – Race 2: 15:25 (20:25 CEST) live streaming
Picture: TCR South America/Hernán Capa
