Engstler wins at Zandvoort as Langeveld leads in the points

Luca Engstler took his maiden win in the ADAC TCR Germany, dominating Zandvoort’s Race 2 from lights to flag.
The young German also gave its first win in the series to the Hyundai i30 N since the Liqui Moly Team Engstler switched to the Korean car before the previous event. And Théo Coicaud provided the icing on the cake as he finished second in the sister car.
Local hero and yesterday’s Race 1 winner Niels Langeveld (Racing One Audi RS3 LMS) put in a great show to finish in a crucial third position that allowed him to take the lead in the standings, nine points ahead of Harald Proczyk (HP Racing Opel Astra), who was classified sixth today. Engstler is still third in the championship classification, but has reduced his gap to just 22 points behind Langeveld.
At the start, Engstler kept the advantage of the pole on the reversed grid, preceding Loris Prattes, Coicaud, Luke Wankmüller, Mike Halder and Proczyk, but an incident at Turn 4 prompted the safety-car after Langeveld touched Max Hesse who crashed into the barriers. At the restart, in lap 4, Engstler pulled away and Coicaud passed Prattes for second. Fourth stood Wankmüller ahead of Halder and Proczyk. It was definitely Langeveld putting in the show, as he took P8 from Antti Buri and shortly after climbed to P7 after passing Simon Reicher. The Dutchman had then Proczyk, his direct rival in the championship, as the next target, while Prattes served a drive-through for having jumped the start.
In lap 7, Langeveld passed Proczyk with a superb overtaking manoeuvre. The Dutchman seemed unstoppable and added Halder and Wankmüller to the list, moving up to third. Afterwards, the positions froze, but gaps got narrower. By lap 13 Langeveld was on the tail of Coicaud’s car, with both not far from the leading Hyundai of Engstler. Still, nothing would change in the final laps, also because a light drizzle started to fall, making the track slippery.
The TCR Germany will resume at the Sachsenring on September 8 and 9.