Esteban Guerrieri bounced back from a troubled Race 1 to win the second of three races of the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour in Mexico City, holding off the charging Yann Ehrlacher by just a tenth of a second.
It was Mikel Azcona who started from pole and got away well, but he was swamped down the straight, with three CUPRA cars going past him, those of Rodrigo Rejón, Michel Jourdain jr. and Aurélien Comte who took the lead. Guerrieri had got away well from P7 on the grid and made his way up to third through T1 as Rejón was spun in a contact with Ma Qing Hua. There was further trouble behind as the CUPRA of Pablo Cervantes was spun around and held up Norbert Michelisz who dropped to the back of the pack.
Guerrieri passed Jourdain for second and then overtook Comte into T1 for the lead, while Jourdain was passed by Ma, Thed Björk, Ehrlacher and Santiago Urrutia. Following team’s orders, Ehrlacher passed his teammates and closed down on Comte, eventually overtaking him with two laps to go.
The Frenchman began to close the gap to the leader Guerrieri, who was struggling with tyre vibrations, but the Argentine kept him at bay and won by just 0.131 seconds.
Comte scored his first career podium and the first for SP Compétition with third, while Björk dropped behind Ma on the final lap, returning the earlier favour.
Jourdain lost one more position late in the race to Ignacio Montenegro and finished eighth, ahead of Rodrigo Rejón. The BRC Hyundai team’s race was one to forget, with Girolami the best in 11th.
After the race, Ma was handed a five-second penalty for the incident with Rodrigo Rejón and dropped to sixth behind Björk and Urrutia.
Guerrieri has scored the most points of the weekend so far and leads the standings on 65; therefore, the Argentine will start the final race of the weekend from the pole with Björk alongside him.
The final race takes place at 17:20 local time (00:20 CEST).
Race 2
- Esteban Guerrieri (GOAT Racing, Honda Civic Type R FL5), 19 laps
- Yann Ehrlacher (Lynk & Co Cyan Racing, Lynk & Co 03 FL), 0.131
- Aurélien Comte (SP Compétition, CUPRA Leon VZ), 2.020
Championship points
- E. Guerrieri, 65 pts; 2. Y. Ehrlacher, 57; 3. T. Björk, 56
Picture: WSC/FPC
