Antti Buri becomes the third different race winner
Antti Buri opened his toll of wins in the 2018 ADAC TCR Germany by taking an authoritative win in Race 1 at Most. The Finn imposed his LMS Racing Audi RS3 LMS ahead of Mike Halder’s Honda Civic and Harald Proczyk’s Opel Astra in a race that was virtually decided a couple of corners after the start and disrupted by two safety-car periods. The three men on the podium were the three race winners so far in the series, with Proczyk keeping the lead in the standings (89 points), 15 points clear from Luca Engstler (Liqui Moly Team Engstler Volkswagen Golf) who was sixth in today’s race.
Under a warm sun, poleman Halder kept the advantage at the start but got passed two turns later by Buri, with Proczyk, Simon Reicher (Audi), Petr Fulín (Cupra) and Engstler following the duo. The safety-car intervened for the first time in lap 2, as Sebastian Steibel’s Golf remained stranded in the gravel following contact with the Honda Civic of Marcel Fugel.
The re-start, in lap 5, saw no changes at the top, but the safety-car was deployed again in lap 8 to allow rescuing the Golf of Théo Coinaud, stalled on a kerb with a mechanical problem. Action resumed with only 8 minutes of race left, with no changes in the top-6. All the attention in the final laps was for the duel between Niels Langeveld’s Audi and Niko Kankkunen’s Golf. The Dutchman had recovered from the back of the grid, where he had started due to an engine problem in qualifying, but had to concede P10 to the young Finn in the last lap. Winner in the Junior category was Max Hesse (Prosport Performance Audi RS3), who took 7th overall.
Race 2 is scheduled tomorrow Sunday at 11:45, (live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv).
