Yann Ehrlacher secures lights-to-flag race one win at Spa

Cyan Racing’s Yann Ehrlacher secured a lights-to-flag victory in the opening TCR Europe / TCR World Tour race at spa-Francorchamps, heading home ALM Motorsport’s Néstor Girolami.

Ehrlacher had earlier in the day put his Lynk & Co 03 on pole position after topping the all-important Q2 by over three tenths of a second from team-mate Ma Qing Hua, although comtoyou Racing had been quickest in Q1 courtesy of john Filippi and Tom Coronel.

At the start, Ehrlacher’s task was made easier when Ma stalled, allowing the two-time WTCR champion to pull into a comfortable lead, although that would be wiped out by a safety car intervention at the end of lap two.

The race had to be neutralised because Dušan Borković, who had earlier made contact with Felipe Fernández Gil on the opening lap, hit Ben Bargwanna’s Peugeot at La Source hairpin at the start of lap two, in turn then also hitting Mikel Azcona’s Hyundai into a spin.

Borković and Bargwanna were out of the race on the spot, requiring their cars to be recovered, whilst the recovering Ma also tagged Mikael Karlsson into a spin in the chaos. Borković later went to the local hospital due to suffering a hand injury in the crash. To compound matters for the Serbian racer, he was also given a three-place grid penalty for his next race as a result of the clash.

After one lap behind the safety car racing resumed, with Cyan Racing’s Santiago Urrutia moving up to third past Comtoyou Racing’s Kobe Pauwels.

Urrutia would hold the final podium position until the end of the race, as team-mate Ehrlacher went on to win, despite Girolami in the new Honda Civic Type-R FL5 remaining relatively close for the race-long distance.

Pauwels was fourth, less than a second behind Urrutia as the winner of the TCR Europe ‘class’, whilst Comtoyou duo Rob Huff and Frédéric Vervisch claimed fifth and sixth respectively, after a late-race team orders decision to allow them past Tom Coronel, who had been running in fifth until the final lap.

Coronel, as a full-season TCR Europe entrant, would lose no points in the TCR Europe championship by letting TCR World Tour drivers Huff and Vervisch through, but since all drivers score in the TCR World Tour, the decision prevented him taking points of his team-mates in the latter classification.

Coronel was thus seventh, ahead of the leading Hyundai of BRC Racing’s Norbert Michelisz in eighth.

The top ten was completed by Cyan Racing’s Thed Björk, and Comtoyou’s John Filippi, the Swede having got past the Corscian on lap five.

Ma would have finished in 11^th, but the Cyan Racing driver was given a post-race five-second penalty for hitting Karlsson on lap two, dropping the Chinese to 14^th.

It meant Viktor Davidovski was 11^th, ahead of fellow Audi racer and leading Volcano Motorsport driver Lewis Brown in 12^th and RC2 Racing Team’s Felipe Fernández in 13^th.

Race two is scheduled to get underway at 11:40 CEST (10:40 BST) on Sunday.

Race results

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP	GD
1	168	WT		Yann EHRLACHER	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	9	24:38.571	2:31.367	1
2	129	WT		Néstor GIROLAMI	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	9	1.637	2:31.983	3
3	112	WT		Santiago URRUTIA	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	9	5.236	2:32.706	5
4	22	EU		Kobe PAUWELS	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	5.977	2:32.854	4
5	179	WT		Rob HUFF	Audi Sport Team Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	7.607	2:33.097	6
6	122	WT		Frédéric VERVISCH	Audi Sport Team Comtoyou	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	8.376	2:33.294	15
7	34	EU		Tom CORONEL	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	8.871	2:32.729	7
8	105	WT		Norbert MICHELISZ	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	9	10.476	2:33.524	8
9	111	WT		Thed BJÖRK	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	9	11.486	2:33.380	11
10	27	EU		John FILIPPI	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	11.899	2:33.871	10
11	11	EU		Viktor DAVIDOVSKI	Comtoyou Racing	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	16.031	2:34.106	12
12	39	EU		Lewis BROWN	Volcano Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	16.657	2:33.955	16
13	19	EU		Felipe FERNÁNDEZ Gil	RC2 Racing Team	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	16.869	2:34.052	9
14	155	WT		MA Qing Hua	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR	9	17.276	2:33.303	2
15	23	EU		Isaac SMITH	Volcano Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	20.418	2:34.642	19
16	196	WT		Mikel AZCONA	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	9	20.743	2:34.063	14
17	10	EU		Viktor ANDERSSON	MA:GP	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	9	21.427	2:34.702	20
18	12	EU		Rubén FERNÁNDEZ Gil	RC2 Racing Team	Audi RS3 LMS TCR II	9	22.199	2:34.813	18
19	264	EU		Levente LOSONCZY	Aggressive Team Italia	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	9	37.618	2:36.312	22
20	48	EU		Mikael KARLSSON	Aggressive Team Italia	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	9	38.084	2:36.258	21
21	128	WT		Philip LINDBERG	ALM Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	9	39.659	2:37.153	23
R	71	EU		Ben BARGWANNA	Team Clairet Sport – Burson Auto Parts Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	1	DNF	2:43.177	17
R	62	EU		Dušan BORKOVIĆ	Target Competition	Hyundai Elantra N TCR	1	DNF	2:43.297	13