HMO Customer Racing’s Josh Buchan claimed an authoritative victory in the opening FIA TCR World Tour race at the Inje Speedium circuit in South Korea, as Esteban Guerrieri and Thed Björk completed the podium.
Buchan had started the race from pole position after Cyan Racing’s Björk was given a three-place grid penalty for a qualifying incident.
The Australian duly made a good start and led into the first corner, before pulling clear throughout the race on a circuit which began on a mostly dry but drying track and ended on a fully dry circuit.
Championship leader Yann Ehrlacher ran in second early on, but the Cyan Racing driver was clearly lacking pace.
GOAT Racing’s Guerrieri started from sixth on the grid, but the Honda driver fell to seventh on the second lap. He was then embroiled in a close battle with the four Lynk & Cos and SP Compétition’s Aurélien Comte, and worked his way back up the order over the following half dozen laps.
On the eighth lap Guerrieri dived inside Ehrlacher for second at Turn 5, having closed down a 2.6-second gap over a lap and half, and immediately pulled clear of the Frenchman, who yielded to team-mate Björk a lap later.
By the time Guerrieri was into second Buchan was comfortably clear in the lead, and he went on to score an important win for Hyundai on the marques home soil.
Guerrieri closed the points gap to Ehrlacher with second, whilst Björk completed the podium and keeps his own title hopes alive in the process.
Ehrlacher was fourth, a distant 13 seconds away from the podium at the end, ahead of Cyan team-mate Santiago Urrutia in fifth.
Comte cleaimed sixth in the field’s sole CUPRA, whilst seventh went to GOAT Racing’s Ignacio Montenegro, closely followed by team-mate Dušan Borković in eighth.
Ma Qing Hua had occupied seventh for most of the second half of the race, and indeed the Chinese driver was pressuring Comte for sixth for many laps.
However, he elected to drop back in the closing laps, with the grid for Sunday’s race two being decided by the race one result, with the top ten reversed.
As such, Ma took ninth ahead of BRC Racing’s Mikel Azcona in tenth, giving Azcona pole position for the next race with Ma alongside.
BRC Racing’s Norbert Michelisz was 11th, whilst the second HMO Hyundai of Ryan MacMillan was 12th.
The winner in TCR Asia was Diego Moran in 13th, ahead of KMSA Motorsport’s Choi Jeong Weon in 14th.
Solite Indigo Racing duo Junesung Park and Junui Park were the only drivers in the field to start the race with wet tyres on the rear – the wrong decision which meant that they plummeted down the order, with Junesung Park finishing in 20th after eventually pitting for slick tyres.
Race two is scheduled to get underway at 10:55 local time on Sunday (02:55 BST, 03:55 CEST) followed by race three at 16:40 local time (08:40 BST, 09:40 CEST).
Race result
| POS | NO | CL | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | BEST | GD |
| 1 | 30 |  |
Josh BUCHAN | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 18 | 32:13.668 | 1:44.861 | 1 | |
| 2 | 186 |  |
Esteban GUERRIERI | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 18 | 5.850 | 1:44.613 | 6 | |
| 3 | 111 |  |
Thed BJÖRK | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 18 | 6.371 | 1:44.613 | 4 | |
| 4 | 168 |  |
Yann EHRLACHER | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 18 | 19.090 | 1:45.552 | 2 | |
| 5 | 112 |  |
Santiago URRUTIA | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 18 | 19.640 | 1:45.641 | 5 | |
| 6 | 107 | |
Aurélien COMTE | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 18 | 20.116 | 1:45.650 | 7 | |
| 7 | 123 | |
Ignacio MONTENEGRO | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 18 | 23.424 | 1:45.444 | 12 | |
| 8 | 62 |  |
Dušan BORKOVIĆ | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 18 | 27.441 | 1:46.179 | 13 | |
| 9 | 155 |  |
MA Qing Hua | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 18 | 40.587 | 1:45.370 | 3 | |
| 10 | 196 |  |
Mikel AZCONA | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 18 | 41.704 | 1:46.046 | 10 | |
| 11 | 105 |  |
Norbert MICHELISZ | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 18 | 44.697 | 1:46.856 | 14 | |
| 12 | 5 | |
Ryan MACMILLAN | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 18 | 52.691 | 1:47.366 | 15 | |
| 13 | 23 |  |
Diego MORAN | DM23 Ecuador Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 18 | 53.008 | 1:46.691 | 17 | |
| 14 | 3 |  |
CHOI Jeongweon | KMSA Motorsport N | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 18 | 1:02.258 | 1:47.007 | 16 | |
| 15 | 87 | |
Junui PARK | Solite Indigo Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 18 | 1:23.218 | 1:48.322 | 9 | |
| 16 | 56 |  |
Benny SANTOSO | Z Speed Motorsport | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 18 | 1:29.740 | 1:48.168 | 20 | |
| 17 | 129 | |
Néstor GIROLAMI | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 18 | 1:46.511 | 1:51.476 | 11 | |
| 18 | 288 |  |
Sean CHANG Chien Shang | RevX Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 17 | + 1 LAP | 1:51.544 | 19 | |
| 19 | 69 | |
Andy LIANG Wenyao | Eurasia Motorsport | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 17 | + 1 LAP | 1:54.843 | 22 | |
| 20 | 97 | |
Junesung PARK | Solite Indigo Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 17 | + 1 LAP | 1:45.581 | 8 | |
| 21 | 381 |  |
Reinghbert G. DIWA | Eurasia Motorsport | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 17 | + 1 LAP | 1:53.237 | 21 | |
| NS | 281 |  |
LO Sze Ho | Evolve Racing | Hyundai i30 N TCR | – | DNS | N/A | 18 |