Gabriele Tarquini wins race three after Kevin Ceccon hit with penalty

BRC Racing’s Gabriele Tarquini claimed victory in the final FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) race at Suzuka, after on-the-road winner Kevin Ceccon was handed a five-second time penalty for being out of position at the start.

Tarquini took the lead at the start of the race after getting a better launch than his Italian compatriot, with Ceccon dropping down to fourth as the Honda of Yann Ehrlacher and the Peugeot of Aurélien Comte also got through in the first sequence of turns.

Ceccon was able to claim third at the chicane on the opening lap, before immediately setting on to Ehrlacher for second, which he took heading into the first corner on the second lap.

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But it took another five laps for Ceccon to catch and pass the leading Hyundai, and by that point Tarquini had already been informed that the chasing Alfa Romeo driver had been handed a five-second time penalty for being out of position at the start of the race.

That made the battle for the lead a moot point, and Tarquini did not make it difficult for Ceccon, who moved into the lead on lap seven and sought to build as big an advantage as he could.

In the end, though, Ceccon was only able to extend a 2.6 second margin, giving Tarquini the win whilst the margin even over the Peugeot of Comte was not enough, handing the Frenchman second and Ceccon being classified in third.

Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehid Bennani took fourth on the final lap of the race, leaving the leading Audi of Comtoyou Racing’s Aurélien Panis to settle for fifth, following up his career-best result which was achieved in the earlier second race of the weekend.

Race two victor Rob Huff brought his SLR Volkswagen home in sixth, ahead of Comtoyou Racing’s Frédéric Vervisch in seventh. The Belgian had been outside the points in 12^th at the mid-point of the race, before a sequence of events caused a compacting of the mid-pack and allowed him to benefit.

Those events began when Münnich Motorsport’s Esteban Guerrieri passed YMR’s Yvan Muller for seventh on the third lap, but contact between the pair also allowed Campos Racing’s Pepe Oriola to get in on the act. Guerrieri was later handed a post-race ten-second penalty for the contact.

The subsequent laps saw the trio battling hard, with Guerrieri leading Muller and Oriola, whilst the latter began to cut the final chicane as he tried to hold off Muller from regaining the position.

Oriola was able to cut the chicane at least three times between laps three and eight before the stewards had enough and handed him a drive-through penalty, but the battles between him and Guerrieri allowed the pack to bunch up.

That resulted in Muller dropping behind Huff and Vervisch, before he was hit by fellow Hyundai driver Norbert Michelisz at the chicane on lap nine, knocking him out of the points.

In the mêlée, it was Thed Björk who also benefitted, moving the YMR driver up to eighth, ahead of Michelisz and Audi Sport Leopard Lukoil’s Jean-Karl Vernay, who took his only point of the day in tenth.

Both Guerrieri and Muller dropped out of the points, leaving Tarquini with a large 39-point advantage at the head of the drivers’ standings heading to the season finale in Macau next month.

Münnich Motorsport’s Yann Ehrlacher had been running in fourth when the Frenchman pulled his Honda off to the side of the circuit with an apparent technical issue on lap seven.

Revised* race result

POS	NO	DRIVER	NAT	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	30	Gabriele TARQUINI		BRC Racing Team	Hyundai i30 N TCR	11	24:41.704	2:13.464	2
2	7	Aurélien COMTE		DG Sport Compétition	Peugeot 308 TCR	11	1.577	2:13.914	3
3	31	Kevin CECCON		Team Mulsanne	Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR	11	2.024	2:13.474	1
4	25	Mehdi BENNANI		Sébastien Loeb Racing	Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR	11	3.140	2:14.150	5
5	21	Aurélien PANIS		Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS	11	3.674	2:13.751	6
6	12	Rob HUFF		Sébastien Loeb Racing	Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR	11	13.728	2:14.320	9
7	22	Frédéric VERVISCH		Audi Sport Team Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS	11	18.296	2:14.389	14
8	11	Thed BJÖRK		YMR	Hyundai i30 N TCR	11	19.963	2:14.435	13
9	5	Norbert MICHELISZ		BRC Racing Team	Hyundai i30 N TCR	11	20.694	2:14.296	7
10	69	Jean-Karl VERNAY		Audi Sport Leopard Lukoil Team	Audi RS3 LMS	11	23.015	2:14.581	17
11	18	Tiago MONTEIRO		Boutsen Ginion Racing	Honda Civic Type R FK8 TCR	11	23.259	2:14.255	16
12	27	John FILIPPI		Team Oscaro by Campos Racing	CUPRA TCR	11	23.660	2:14.554	22
13	42	Timo SCHEIDER		ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport	Honda Civic Type R FK8 TCR	11	24.238	2:14.519	18
14	9	Tom CORONEL		Boutsen Ginion Racing	Honda Civic Type R FK8 TCR	11	24.639	2:15.347	23
15	70	Mat’o HOMOLA		DG Sport Compétition	Peugeot 308 TCR	11	27.312	2:15.467	15
16	52	Gordon SHEDDEN		Audi Sport Leopard Lukoil Team	Audi RS3 LMS	11	27.956	2:14.391	20
17	8	Norbert NAGY		Zengő Motorsport	CUPRA TCR	11	28.654	2:15.163	24
18	74	Pepe ORIOLA		Team Oscaro by Campos Racing	CUPRA TCR	11	37.050	2:14.121	10
19	86	Esteban GUERRIERI		ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport	Honda Civic Type R FK8 TCR	11	39.948*	2:13.776	11
20	23	Nathanaël BERTHON		Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS	10	+ 1 LAP	2:14.267	19
21	48	Yvan MULLER		YMR	Hyundai i30 N TCR	10	+ 1 LAP	2:13.989	12
R	68	Yann EHRLACHER		ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport	Honda Civic Type R FK8 TCR	6	DNF	2:13.806	4
R	20	Denis DUPONT		Audi Sport Team Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS	5	DNF	2:15.018	8
R	16	Luigi FERRARA		Team Mulsanne	Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR	5	DNF	2:13.621	21
NS	66	Zsolt Dávid SZABÓ		Zengő Motorsport	CUPRA TCR	–	DNS	N/A	25