Dominik Fugel back in title fight after win in Sachsenring’s Race 1

Dominik Fugel took a dominant lights-to-flag victory in Race 1 in his home event at the Sachsenring, finishing over fourteen seconds ahead of Martin Andersen with Rene Kircher completing the podium positions. Both ADAC TCR Germany title contenders Luca Engstler and Eric Scalvini had races to forget, scoring only one and four points respectively.
After earlier taking his first pole position of the 2021 season, Fugel made a great start and led the field into Turn 1. Engstler made an even better start from P4 and muscled his way past both Marcel Fugel and his teammate Martin Andersen to lie in second place. The first half of the thirty-minute race then saw no further changes among the top seven, with Dominik Fugel leading from Engstler, Marcel Fugel, Andersen, Kircher, Nico Gruber and Philipp Regensperger. Behind those seven, however, there were some great scraps for the remainder of the top ten places. On Lap 10, there was contact between Albert Legutko and Scalvini after the pole ran very wide at Turn 1. Scalvini dropped to fifteenth place as a result of the incident and Legutko would be ordered to drop behind Scalvini by the Stewards. 
No sooner had one championship contender encountered problems than another – the series leader – also experienced an issue. On Lap 11, Engstler headed into the pits with a mechanical problem, although he was soon on his way again after attention from his mechanics. That elevated Marcel Fugel to P2, albeit a long way behind his brother whose lead was now a little over eighteen seconds. Engstler’s car was still far from fixed, and he would pay another, longer, visit to the pits before rejoining the race once again and eventually finishing sixteenth. 
Andersen, Marcel Fugel and Kircher were fighting for P2 when there was contact between Fugel and Andersen; it appeared that the contact had damaged the Honda as both Andersen and Kircher were able to pass Fugel for second and third positions with apparent ease one lap later. Marcel Fugel would then steadily drop back down the order throughout the remainder of the race and finish in P15. Christopher Röhner then passed Jonas Karklys for P6, with Patrick Sing and Röhner then both passing Regensperger for P4 and P5 respectively on the penultimate lap. There were no changes to the podium places, however, and so Dominik Fugel was able to take an emphatic victory ahead of Andersen and Kircher. 
The results mean that Scalvini is now 65 points behind Engstler in the championship standings, with Dominik Fugel having moved up into third place a further 12 points behind Scalvini.
Track action will resume tomorrow morning at 08:05 (CEST) with the Qualifying session for Race 2.

Sachsenring – Race 1
1. Dominik Fugel (Team ADAC Sachsen, Honda Civic Type R Fk7), 22 laps
2. Martin Andersen (Hyundai Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 14.389
3. René Kircher (Team Oettinger, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 20.529
4. Patrick Sing (Race Sing, Hyundai i30 N), 25.079
5. Christopher Röhner (Team ADAC Sachsen, Honda Civic Type R Fk7), 25.278

Championship points
1. L. Engstler 255; 2. E. Scalvini 190; 3. D. Fugel 178 

Picture: ADAC Motorsport/Gruppe C Photography