Buri beats Proczyk, while Dominik Fugel loses ground

Anti Buri dominated the first race of TCR Germany at the Lausitzring, where the Finn led from lights to flag and won with a large margin over Harald Proczyk who made up for a horrible start and recovered to finish second. Behind them, Polish youngster Albert Legutko was classified third, claiming his first podium in the championship at the wheel of his old Honda Civic FK2. 
As far as the championship standings are concerned, Proczyk retained the leadership with a margin of 13 points over Buri, while the third title contender, Dominik Fugel finished a disappointed ninth and so dropped to third in the classification, 28 points off the leader.
At the start on the wet track, Proczyk nearly stalled from the pole and was swallowed up by the group. Buri took the lead, resisting an attempt of overtaking from Dominik Fugel who had sprinted from P5 on the grid.
During the first lap, Buri was able to run away, while Legutko passed Fugel for second and Proczyk began to recover after dropping to eighth. The Austrian driver passed René Kircher, Nico Gruber and Fugel to move into P3, while Jan Seyffert went straight while he was third and rejoined at the back of the field. Fugel continued to lose positions and after making contact with Džiugas Tovilavičius dropped to eighth.
Buri had built a huge leadership, while in lap 6, Proczyk overtook Legutko for second. Further behind, Dominik Fugel passed Tovilavičius for P7 in lap 10 and immediately afterwards Tovilavičius collided with Marcel Fugel; in the contact the front suspension of Fugel’s Honda collapsed and he retired into the pits.
Buri took his third win of the season from Proczyk and Legutko; Gruber and Kircher finished fourth and fifth ahead of guest lady driver Laura Kraihamer. The fight for P6 between Dominik Fugel and Seyffert was decided by a mistake of Fugel who went straight at the end of lap 14, rejoined after cutting the track and was therefore penalised by 30 seconds, which dropped him to ninth.
Race 2 will start at 11:30 on Sunday (CET), live streaming at www.tcr-series.com. 

Race 1
1. Antti Buri (Engstler Motorsport, Hyundai i30 N), 15 laps
2. Harald Proczyk (HP Racing International, Hyundai i30 N), 12.139
3. Albert Legutko (Legutko Racing, Honda Civic Type R FK2), 13.531
4. Nico Gruber (Engstler Motorsport, Hyundai i30 N), 15.396
5. René Kircher (Team Oettinger, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 23.872

Championship points
1. Harald Proczyk 198 pts; 2. Antti Buri 185; 3. Dominik Fugel 170 

Picture: ADAC Motorsport