Engstler encores, while Lloyd and Couto crash
TCR China’s second race at Ningbo was decided by an unfortunate incident during the third lap that eliminated the MacPro Racing Honda cars of André Couto and Daniel Lloyd who were first and second. Luca Engstler inherited the lead and easily encored his Saturday’s win, while Huang Chu Han cruised to finish second and stretched his leading margin in the standings to 20 points ahead of Lloyd.
At the start, Edward Chen started well from the pole, while Martin Xie hit Kenneth Look’s cars that spun off. Xie’s Honda suffered from a broken front suspension and James Wong spun in avoidance.
Couto and Lloyd overtook Chen, moving into first and second; Engstler passed Zhang and Chen advancing to third. During the third lap Engstler began fighting with Lloyd for the second position, then Couto spun in front of them and Lloyd couldn’t avoid crashing into his teammate’s car. Engstler was lucky to avoid being caught in collision and found himself in the lead, well ahead of Huang and Chen.
Positions didn’t change, Engstler won from Huang and Chen, while the MG cars of Zhang Zhen Dong and Rodolfo Ávila were classified fourth and fifth. However, after the race Chen was penalised for a jump start and this elevated Zhang and Ávila to third and fourth.
The championship will come to an end on 26th/27th October at Zhouzhou.
Race 2
1. Luca Engstler (Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 13 laps
2. Huang Chu Han (Team NewFaster, Audi RS 3 LMS), 14.883
3. Zhang Zhen Dong (XPower Racing, MG 6), 34.436
4. Rodolfo Ávila (XPower Racing, MG 6), 35.441
5. Yan Chuang (Team ARTKA, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 44.137
Championship points
1. Huang 125 pts; 2. Lloyd 105; 3. Look 91
