Nika Racing’s Michel Nykjær took victory in an eventful second World Touring Car Championship race in Russia, beating RML’s Yvan Muller to victory by just 0.379 seconds.
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At the start of the race it was poleman Mehdi Bennani who got the best start, whilst Nykjær bogged down off the line, although managing to hold on to second. As the race developed Nykjær caught Bennani and passed him on lap seven, opening up enough of a gap to hold off a late race charge from Muller.
“It was much harder than I expected,” said Nykjær after his third win of the season. “I could see there was a Chevrolet which was red and white behind me and I said to Lars [Nykjær’s race engineer] ‘oh no’. I was just pushing and pushing to have a gap but he came closer and closer.
“It was hard with Bennani – he hit me some times so I was nervous about my rear tyre. I saw him brake a little bit later the lap before so I just went up the inside and said ‘goodbye’.”
Muller finished in second after a duel through the field which saw the Frenchman come from tenth on the grid. The former champion only made it into second with three laps to go and was unable to close the gap to Nykjær.
Third was Münnich Motorsport’s Rob Huff, who scored only his second podium of the season. Huff had been involved in a late-race duel with Muller and Bennani, which ultimately saw Bennani spin out of contention when defending against Huff for second.
Pepe Oriola finished in fourth for his Tuenti Racing outfit, despite early race contact from Gabriele Tarquini. Norbert Michelisz finished the race as the top Honda driver in fifth, ahead of Tom Chilton in sixth.
Tarquini finished the race in seventh, although the Italian had been battling for a podium in the first half of the race. Coming onto lap five the Honda driver was defending against Tom Coronel, James Thompson, Huff and Muller and with the cars five abreast onto the start straight contact was inevitable. The incident saw Coronel move over on Tarquini, pitching the Dutchman and an innocent Thompson off track. Thompson, Tarquini and Coronel all lost out, whilst Huff and Muller slipped past.
Stefano D’Aste, Darryl O’Young and James Nash completed the top ten.
After scoring LADA’s best-ever result in race one and looking strong in race two, Thompson retired from the race due to damage sustained in the aforementioned incident. His team-mate Mikhail Kozlovskiy would also retire from the race a handful of laps later with damage.
Despite Engstler Motorsport’s best efforts to repair Charles Kaki Ng’s car for race two, the Hong Kong driver would retire after just one lap with suspension problems.
The result sees Muller’s championship lead increased to 113 points from Tarquini, with Nykjær moving up to third a further six points adrift.