Mikel Azcona claimed vitory in the first race of the TCR Europe season at the Slovakiaring, getting past pole-sitter Tom Coronel at the start and then easing to victory.
Coronel made a loswer start than his Spanish rival and was out-dragged on the run to the first turn, with Azcona completing the pass up the inside with ease.
Although Coronel initially held on to second, he soon dropped back from the Volcano Motorsport CUPRA driver and by the end of the first lap was almost two seconds behind the 2018 champion.
Whilst Azcona scurried up the road, extending a lead of almost four seconds, Coronel appeared to be struggling for pace in his Comtoyou Racing Audi, and on lap four he was passed by team-mate Nicolas Baert for second.
On the same lap Coronel dropped out of the podium places behind the Zengő Motorsport CUPRA of Dániel Nagy, before a lap later dropping to fifth, being passed by compatriot Niels Langeveld’s Hyundai Elantra N at the first corner, although the experienced Coronel appeared to then maintain his pace to halt his demise.
Victory for Azcona marks his fourth in five races in the series, after he entered the final four races of the 2020 season and won three of them.
Baert held on to take second, whilst Nagy, only currently entering the season-opening event, was the final podium finisher.
Langeveld was the best of the Sébastien Loeb Racing drivers in the new Hyundai Elantra and took fourth, ahead of Coronel in fifth.
The battle for sixth was one of the closest of the race, with young Spaniard Isidro Callejas initially holding the place early in the race.
However a high-speed off on the exit of Turn 2 on lap six saw him drop initially behind SLR’s Mehdi Bennani, whilst then also having to deal with dirty tyres and a radiator full of grass after hitting the bumps on the grassy infield.
Callejas later suffered the consequences of his high-speed bumpy off, as the suspension on his Brutal Fish Racing Honda failed on the last lap and his left-rear wheel detached from his Civic.
That meant Bennani claimed sixth, ahead of the Comtoyou Racing Audi of Dušan Borković in seventh, the Serbian driver having dropped down the order to tenth on the opening lap from fourth on the grid after a slow getaway in his RS3.
Sami Taoufik claimed eighth at the flag, fighting back in the later stages of the race, but was later handed a post-race 30-second penalty for contact with Isidro Callejas early in the race. The top ten was thus completed by his SLR team-mate Felice Jelmini, the second Volcano Motorsport CUPRA of Evgenii Leonov and Brutal Fish Racing’s Martin Ryba.
There was bad luck for both Peugeot 308s of Jimmy and Teddy Clairet, with the former retiring to the pits with an issue at the end of the first lap, whilst Teddy spun out late in the race.
Russian Kilm Gavrilov was an early casualty on the opening lap, with contact from Callejas on the exit of Turn 1 spinning him in front of the field. He ultimately retired his Audi to the pits after picking up damage in the incident.
Janík Motorsport’s Mat’o Homola failed to take the start after a continuation of issues from qualifying on his Hyundai i30 N TCR.
Race two is scheduled to get underway at 12:55 BST (13:55 CEST) on Sunday.