Ferrara wins Monza Race 1 but Tavano takes the title

Luigi Ferrara, driving an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, won the first of the weekend’s TCR Italy races at Monza, but fifth place was enough to secure the 2018 Drivers’ title for Salvatore Tavano in the SEAT Motorsport Italia-run Cupra with one race still to go.
The Cupra of pole-sitter Igor Stefanovski was beaten to Turn 1 by Eric Scalvini’s Hyundai i30 N with Tavano retaining the second place in which he’d started. Ferrara started from fourth on the grid and was elevated to third when Stefanovski went straight on at the Roggia chicane. There was then contact between Stefanovski and Tavano on lap 2, which allowed Ferrara to move up into second place and Enrico Bettera into fourth. Bettera’s Audi then passed Tavano for third place on lap 4, which is where Bettera would finish.
Two battles then developed – the first between Scalvini and Ferrera for the lead and the second a thrilling three-way scrap involving the Cupra cars of Stefanovski, Tavano and Andrea Larini – and both would continue for much of the 25-minute race. Ferrara snatched the lead on lap 4 but Scalvini stayed with the Alfa Romeo for several laps until his challenge began to fade in the race’s closing stages. Both drivers received five-second time penalties for infringing track limits at Turn 4, as did Bettera and Stefanovski.
Tavano continued to fight with Larini and Stefanovski, aware that fourth place would mean he would clinch the title (or fifth, should Ferrara not set the fastest lap of the race). Thanks to Stefanovki’s time penalty and Scalvini’s Hyundai claiming the quickest lap time, Ferrara’s victory wasn’t enough to take the fight to the season’s final race and so Tavano took the Drivers’ crown.
After the various penalties were applied, the top six places were taken by Ferrara, Scalvini, Bettera, Larini, Tavano and Stefanovski. Matteo Greco finished as the highest-placed DSG entry in eighth place.
The final race of the season takes place on Sunday at 10:00 CET with the Cupra cars of Greco and Stefanovski sharing the front row of the reverse grid; live streaming at www.tcr-series.tv.