Aleksey Dudukalo leads an Audi 1-2-3 at Kazan Ring

Aleksey Dudukalo converted his pole position into his first victory of the season in the TCR Russia Race 1 at Kazan Ring. The Lukoil Racing’s driver led an Audi 1-2-3 as Dmitry Bragin and Irek Minnakhmetov completed the podium.
The starting grid was reshuffled: Lev Tolkachev – third in Qualifying – was dropped by three positions for an incident he had caused in the previous event, while Ivan Lukashevich (fourth in Qualifying), Pavel Yashin, Oleg Kharuk and Klim Gavrilov had to start from the pitlane for switching to different cars.
At the start, Dudukalo sprinted from the pole ahead of Bragin and Minnakhmetov, while Anton Badoev who was second on the grid lost several positions.
The LADA Sport Rosneft cars of Vladimir Sheshenin and Kirill Ladygin moved up quickly to fourth and fifth, while there were several contacts as the midfielders were fighting for the positions.
As the gaps were stretched, the race became mostly processional until the safety car was deployed on lap 10 to recover Magomed Dagiev’s SEAT León that was stranded in the gravel.
Racing resumed only for the last lap with a re-compacted field; Dudukalo resisted Bragin’s final assault and won by 0.179 second, with Minnakhmetov a close third and the LADA duo of Sheshenin and Ladygin in fourth and fifth; Badoev was classified sixth.
Bragin increased his leading margin in the standings that is now of 14 and 17 points clear of Ladygin and Sheshenin respectively; Dudukalo moved up to fourth, 23 points off the leader and one over his teammate Lukashevich.
The second race will start tomorrow at 11:40 local time (10:40 CET); live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.