The Lynk & Co Cyan Racing cars have dominated also the second Kumho FIA TCR World Tour race at Vila Real. This time it was up to Thed Björk and Ma Qing Hua to secure another 1-2 for the Chinese manufacturer and the Swedish team.
Behind them, Ignacio Montenegro claimed another podium for GOAT Racing, but more significantly it was the first one in the World Tour for the Argentine youngster.
Montenegro had the pole on the reversed grid, but he was flanked by both the Lynk & Co cars on the way to the first corner and dropped to third. Behind him on the road should have been Viktor Andersson, but again the Swedish driver failed to make the start with the car wheeled into the pit lane before the lights went out.
This left a gap ahead of Aurélien Comte, who was able to take advantage of the space in front of him to pass Norbert Michelisz for the fourth place.
At the mid-point of the race, Ma – who was not eligible to score points for the Teams’ championship this weekend – let Björk through into the lead. The Swedish driver then controlled the pace and won by half a second ahead of Ma.
Michelisz was set to be the top finishing Hyundai in fifth position until he slowed with three laps to go and came into the pits, rejoining to finish a lap down in 13th; so it was his teammate Mikel Azcona to take P5 behind Comte.
Marco Butti would be the only retirement of the race; the Italian was applying pressure to the Lynk & Co of points leader Yann Ehrlacher until he had to stop with a technical issue with two laps to go out of ninth, promoting teammate Dusan Borkovič in his place.
With Esteban Guerrieri finishing sixth, two places ahead of Ehrlacher, the Frenchman’s championship lead is reduced to 27 points at the halfway point of the season and going into the summer break, with the next round taking place in Australia, at Tailem Bend on September 11/13.
Race 2
- Thed Björk (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, Lynk & Co 03), 14 laps
- Ma Qing Hua (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, Lynk & Co 03), 0.509
- Ignacio Montenegro (GOAT Racing, Honda Civic Type R FL5), 2.094
Championship points
- Y. Ehrlacher, 250 pts; 2. E. Guerrieri, 223; 3. S. Urrutia, 215
Picture: WSC/Fastclick
