Diego Morán wins and keeps the title fight alive
Diego Morán won Zhejiang’s Race 2 and kept the TCR Asia title fight alive, as he cut ten points off his teammate Luca Engstler’s leading margin in the standings. They are now split by 30 points, and so the battle will be decided in the series finale in Thailand, where 55 points will be on offer.
Huang Chu Han finished fourth overall and encored yesterday’s race victory in TCR China; the NewFaster Racing driver has stretched the gap in the standings to nine points over Daniel Lloyd.
At the start Martin Xie sprinted ahead of Daniel Miranda who sat on pole position, but at Turn 1 the Filipino driver hit the back of Xie’s Honda; this helped Morán to pass both and take the lead. During the opening lap, Pepe Oriola overtook both Miranda and Xie, moving up into second. Xie, then, pitted for repairs after the incident with Miranda.
On lap 3, Engstler who had recovered to third after starting from 10th began chasing Oriola; for several lap the Spaniard closed all the gaps until lap 9, when Engstler made a mistake and dropped to fourth, behind Huang. They swapped positions a couple of times, but eventually Engstler moved again into third position for good on lap 12, but it was too late to catch up with Oriola again. Still on lap 12, Adam Khalid overtook Lloyd for fifth.
And this is how they finished with Morán, Oriola and Engstler delivering the second Hyundai’s 1-2-3 finish of the weekend; Khalid was classified fourth, because Miranda was given the black flag as he did not serve a drive through for the incident with Xie.
In TCR China, Lloyd was second behind Huang, while Zhang Zhen Dong finished in 10th position overall and completed the podium at the wheel of the new MG 6.
The final race meeting of TCR Asia will be at Bangsaen, Thailand, on August 30/September 1, while TCR China’s fourth and penultimate event will be held at Ningbo on September 13/15.
Race 2
1. Diego Morán (Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 17 laps
2. Pepe Oriola (Indigo Racing, Hyundai i30 N), 10.138
3. Luca Engstler (Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 15.573
4. Huang Chu Han (NewFaster Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 15.863
5. Adam Khalid (Team Oettinger, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 18.746
Championship points TCR Asia
1. Engstler 183 pts; 2. Morán 153; 3. Oriola 126
Championship points TCR China
1. Huang 99 pts; 2. Lloyd 90 pts; 3. Look 71
