Mikel Azcona scored a lights-to-flag win in the reverse-grid FIA TCR World Tour race at the Inje Speedium circuit in South Korea, as behind him there was fierce battling amongst the title contenders.
Before the start, technical dramas forced race one winner Josh Buchan to start from the pitlane, and when the lights went out reverse-grid pole-sitter Azcona made a good start to ease into a comfortable lead as GOAT Racing’s Dušan Borković got the jump on Cyan Racing’s Ma Qing Hua to assume second.
Further around the lap, SP Compétition’s Aurélien Comte, who was battling with the Lynk & Co of Santiago Urrutia retired with an issue on his CUPRA, pulling off the circuit.
The racing was immediately feisty amongst the championship challengers – GOAT Racing’s Esteban Guerrieri passed Cyan Racing’s Urrutia for seventh on the third lap, before getting ahead of the next Cyan car of Thed Björk through Turns 2 and 3 a lap later.
With GOAT Racing’s Ignacio Montenegro in fourth acting as a cork-in-the-bottle, the mid-pack battles soon heated up. Guerrieri turned his attentions to Yann Ehrlacher ahead for fourth, but in the process lost out to Björk.
Then, at the Turn 17 hairpin, Björk went around the outside of team-mate Ehrlacher, who was simultaneously passed by Guerrieri on the inside line, leaving the Frenchman two places down.
Through the first sequence of corners, Björk then got past Montenegro around the outside on the next lap, as Montenegro immediately ceded ground to team-mate Guerrieri and Ehrlacher also squeezed by into sixth.
The safety car had to be called on lap seven when Junui Park’s Hyundai ended up stranded on the exit of Turn 3 with front-end damage following an incident, with the race remaining neutralised for four laps whilst the car was towed to safety.
Racing resumed on lap 11 and Björk immediately passed team-mate Ma for third, and Guerrieri immediately tried to do the same into Turn 4 but as Ma closed the door he was squeezed to the grass on the inside, and clattered into the kerbs.
Both drivers went deep and Ehrlacher passed both and assumed fourth, with Guerrieri remaining in fifth whilst Ma fell further back.
At the front, Azcona pulled clear once again but Borković came under pressure from Björk, with the Swede getting into second at the first corner on lap 13.
Ehrlacher tried to follow into third a couple of corners later but tapped the back of the Honda, forcing Borković into a slide after which he also ceded to Guerrieri.
Guerrieri was thereafter unable to take the fight back to the Cyan cars in front, and as Azcona won the race, Björk and Ehrlacher swapped places on the run ot the chequered flag, giving Ehrlacher second from his team-mate.
Guerrieri took fourth ahead of Borković, whilst Cyan duo Urrutia and Ma were sixth and seventh respectively.
BRC Racing’s Norbert Michelisz was eighth, with the top ten completed by HMO Customer Racing’s Buchan and the third BRC Hyundai of Néstor Girolami.
Montenegro fell to 11th at the finish, ahead of HMO’s Ryan MacMillan, whilst Diego Moran won the TCR Asia sub-race in 13th.
Race three gets underway 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 | 196 |  |
Mikel AZCONA | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N EV TCR | 17 | 32:23.006 | 1:42.275 | 1 | |
| 2 | 168 |  |
Yann EHRLACHER | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 17 | 4.168 | 1:43.378 | 7 | |
| 3 | 111 |  |
Thed BJÖRK | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 17 | 4.519 | 1:43.269 | 8 | |
| 4 | 186 |  |
Esteban GUERRIERI | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 17 | 7.794 | 1:44.116 | 9 | |
| 5 | 62 |  |
Dušan BORKOVIĆ | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 17 | 14.127 | 1:42.982 | 3 | |
| 6 | 112 |  |
Santiago URRUTIA | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 17 | 14.935 | 1:44.541 | 6 | |
| 7 | 155 |  |
MA Qing Hua | Lynk & Co Cyan Racing | Lynk & Co 03 FL TCR | 17 | 15.553 | 1:42.955 | 2 | |
| 8 | 105 |  |
Norbert MICHELISZ | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N EV TCR | 17 | 17.085 | 1:44.093 | 11 | |
| 9 | 30 |  |
Josh BUCHAN | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 17 | 17.336 | 1:43.061 | 10 | |
| 10 | 129 | |
Néstor GIROLAMI | BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse | Hyundai Elantra N EV TCR | 17 | 18.281 | 1:44.193 | 17 | |
| 11 | 123 | |
Ignacio MONTENEGRO | GOAT Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 17 | 24.605 | 1:43.321 | 4 | |
| 12 | 5 | |
Ryan MACMILLAN | HMO Customer Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 17 | 25.226 | 1:45.347 | 12 | |
| 13 | 23 |  |
Diego MORAN | DM23 Ecuador Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 17 | 25.597 | 1:44.464 | 13 | |
| 14 | 281 |  |
LO Sze Ho | Evolve Racing | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 17 | 26.213 | 1:45.156 | 22 | |
| 15 | 3 |  |
CHOI Jeongweon | KMSA Motorsport N | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 17 | 30.053 | 1:45.136 | 14 | |
| 16 | 288 |  |
Sean CHANG Chien Shang | RevX Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 17 | 30.351 | 1:45.453 | 18 | |
| 17 | 381 |  |
Reinghbert G. DIWA | Eurasia Motorsport | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 17 | 33.906 | 1:46.015 | 21 | |
| 18 | 56 |  |
Benny SANTOSO | Z Speed Motorsport | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 17 | 43.459 | 1:45.322 | 16 | |
| 19 | 69 | |
Andy LIANG Wenyao | Eurasia Motorsport | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 17 | 57.489 | 1:48.580 | 19 | |
| R | 97 | |
Junesung PARK | Solite Indigo Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 12 | DNF | 1:44.153 | 20 | |
| R | 87 | |
Junui PARK | Solite Indigo Racing | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 5 | DNF | 1:43.609 | 15 | |
| R | 107 | |
Aurélien COMTE | SP Compétition | CUPRA Leon VZ TCR | 0 | DNF | N/A | 5 |