Harald Proczyk heads a Hyundai 1-2-3 at Hockenheim

Harald Proczyk took a lights-to-flag victory in Race 1 at the Hockenheimring, finishing ahead of Max Hesse and Théo Coicaud to form an all-Hyundai podium.
Pole-sitter Proczyk made a superb start and led going into Turn 1, with Mike Halder making up three positions by passing Hesse, Coicaud and guest driver Andreas Bäckman to lie in second position. Hesse and Coicaud immediately began battling for third place, while the CUPRA of Julien Apothéloz made contact with another car and was forced to pit for repairs.
On Lap 2, Coicaud forced Halder to run wide and so Coicaud, Hesse and Bäckman all moved up a place as a result and Halder dropped back to fifth position. On the next lap, the Audi RS 3 LMS of championship leader Antti Buri made contact with Lukas Niedertscheider’s Hyundai while the pair were fighting for seventh place, although the battle would rage for much of the race.
Lap 4 saw the Honda Civic FK2 of Marcel Fugel suffer steering failure and the car ended up in the barrier at Turn 17, which brought out the safety car. When the race resumed on Lap 9, Mike Halder wasted no time in attacking Andreas Bäckman and he moved up to fourth place. Andreas then ran wide, dropping three places and allowing Dominik Fugel, Buri and Niedertscheider to move ahead.
On Lap 10, Michelle Halder ran wide as she locked up her brakes at the hairpin, while the following lap saw second place change hands when Hesse passed Coicaud. The twelfth lap then delivered the race’s most dramatic incident, when Niedertscheider made a move on Buri and Andreas Bäckman moved between the pair to run three abreast. Bäckman then went straight on after possible contact, while an impossibly late braking move from Niedertscheider meant he collided with Buri’s car and the pair went off. Buri dropped to tenth place but continued, while Niedertscheider’s car was stranded with broken steering.
The safety car was deployed again, but with less than four minutes of the thirty-minute race remaining, Niedertscheider’s car couldn’t be recovered in time and so the race finished behind the safety car. Proczyk, Hesse and Coicaud made it an all-Hyundai top three, with Mike Halder holding onto fourth ahead of Dominik Fugel.
The result means Buri’s lead in the series has been slashed to just three points, with second-placed Hesse now ten points ahead of Proczyk. Mike Halder is a further 22 points behind Proczyk in fourth position.
Race 2 takes place Sunday at 14:40 CET, with the Honda cars of Fugel and Burns sharing the front row of the reverse grid; live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.

Race 1
1. Harald Proczyk (HP Racing International, Hyundai i30 N), 16 laps
2. Max Hesse (Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 0.401
3. Théo Coicaud (Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 1.157
4. Mike Halder (Profi-Car, Honda Civic FK7), 2.656
5. Dominic Fugel (Profi-Car, Honda Civic FK7), 3.560

Championship points
1. Buri 340 pts; 2. Hesse 337; 3. Proczyk 327