At the N-Ring, Bragin claims his first victory of the season
TAIF Motorsport’s Dimitry Bragin took his first win of the current season in TCR Russia’s second race at the N-Ring. Bragin and his Audi RS 3 LMS led from the lights to the flag, while Kirill Ladygin collected a second place that helped him to stretch his leadership in the standings to 24 points ahead of Race 1 winner Pavel Kalmanovich and Andrei Maslennikov. Kalmanovich’s AG Motorsport teammate Aydar Nuriev completed the podium, this was his first time among the top-three.
At the start, Bragin made good use of the pole position to lead the field, while Egor Fokin who was alongside him on the front row was swallowed by the drivers behind. Ladygin moved up into second followed by Nuriev.
Behind the three leaders, a furious battle for P4 began, involving Maslennikov, Ivan Lukaschevich, Egor Orudzhev, Zakhar Slutskiy, Timur Shigabutdinov and Grigory Burlutskiy. They ran bumper-to-bumper for several laps and eventually they were joined by Mikhail Mityaev, Fokin and Lev Tolkachev.
Maslennikov managed to get away from this group, but Slutskiy overtook Lukaschevich for P5 and closed in on Maslennikov.
Both Kalmanovich and Orudzhev had to serve drive through penalties for false starts and dropped several positions.
Bragin built a small margin over Ladygin who was running a few seconds ahead of Nuriev; behind them Maslennikov was chased by Slutskiy. Lukaschevich and Burlutskiy followed in P6 and P7, while Shigabutdinov was defending the eighth position from the attacks of Mityaev, Fokin, Tolkachev and Orudzhev.
In lap 19, Mityaev, passed Shigabutdinov for P8; their cars clashed and Shigabutdinov dropped down to 12th. During the penultimate lap, Orudzhev’s Audi stopped with a technical issue.
There were no other changes and so Bragin claimed his first win of the season from Ladygin, Nuriev, Maslennikov and Slutskiy.
The championship will resume at the Igora Drive on 24/25 July.
N-Ring – Race 2
1. Dmitry Bragin (TAIF Motorsport, Audi RS 3 LMS), 22 laps
2. Kirill Ladygin (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport), 1.797
3. Aydar Nuriev (AG Team, Audi RS 3 LMS), 5.317
4. Andrei Maslennikov (Lukoil Racing Team, Hyundai i30 N), 7.013
5. Zakhar Slutskiy (Carville Racing, Hyundai i30 N), 7.230
Championship points:
1. K. Ladygin 75 pts; 2. P. Kalmanovich 52; 3. D. Bragin 51
Picture: Grigory Golyshev
