The last race of the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour at Zhejiang Circuit saw Hyundai twins Mikel Azcona and Norbert Michelisz encoring the 1-2 finish they had done yesterday.
It was the first dry race of the weekend and the toughest one, as Hyundai and Geely drivers did not spare ‘courtesies’, which forced Race Control to notify driving standards warnings to Azcona, Santiago Urrutia and Thed Björk.
After Azcona had seen his lead in the standings being reduced by Urrutia to just 17 points after Race 2, he managed to extend it again to 39 as his rival was forced to make a pit stop for repairing damage from the battle, which helped Michelisz to move up to second, six points ahead of the Uruguayan driver.
Now everything will be decided in Macau in three weeks, where Michelisz and Azcona will be carrying the heaviest compensation weights up and down the Guia Circuit
The grid made from the points scored at the weekend saw Michelisz on pole ahead of Urrutia, Aurélien Comte, Azcona and Björk. Urrutia made a better start and led the field, with Azcona and Michelisz behind. Comte went wide at T3 and rejoined making contact with Jean-Karl Vernay who went off and stopped in the gravel trap. The safety car was deployed and racing resumed in lap 4, with Comte serving a drive through for the collision with his teammate.
Two battles developed, one for the overall lead between Urrutia and Azcona, one for the Guest Star Trophy between Raymond Liu Weng Hin, Diego Moran, Lo Sze Ho and Bayern Yip Wai Hei.
In lap 7, Azcona made a move on Urrutia, they clashed door-to-door and the Spaniard went through; then it was Michelisz who muscled his way past Urrutia who pitted for new tyres, while Björk began to chase the leading pair.
The Guest Star Trophy leader Liu retired, and the fight was now between Moran and Lo once again.
Azcona built a small gap, with Michelisz behind making his car as wider as possible to defend from the Geely trio of Björk, Ma Qing Hua and Yann Ehrlacher who swapped places every now and then to apply pressure on the Hungarian driver.
Michelisz wasn’t frightened and stubbornly held on to the second place, then in lap 17 Ma who doesn’t score for the Team’s championship dropped behind his teammates.
Azcona scored his second win of the weekend from Michelisz and Björk, while Moran slowed with a turbo issue and lost the Guest Star Trophy to Lo on the last lap, but retained the first place in TCR Asia.
Race 3
- Mikel Azcona (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse, Hyundai Elantra N EV), 19 laps
- Norbert Michelisz (BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse, Hyundai Elantra N EV), 1.327
- Thed Björk (Geely Cyan Racing, Geely Preface), 2.596
Guest Star Trophy: Lo Sze Ho (Evolve Racing, Hyundai Elantra N)
Championship points
- M. Azcona, 445 pts.; 2. N. Michelisz, 412; 3. S. Urrutia, 406
