Jean-Karl Vernay wins Race 2 at Marrakech

The 2017 TCR International Series champion Jean-Karl Vernay made clear that he will be one of the title contenders for the WTCR title by winning the second race at Marrakech.
Vernay started better than pole sitter Pepe Oriola from the top-ten reverse grid; the Spaniard tried to keep him at bay at T1, but while Vernay managed to take the lead, Oriola dropped to third, behind Mehdi Bennani who benefited from the situation to overtake him on the inside line.
The race was disrupted twice by the safety car: once between laps 7 and 10, after Zsolt Dávid Szabó Cupra stalled at T1 after a collision with Gianni Morbidelli’s Alfa Romeo; the second time between laps 12 and 14 to recover Benjamin Lessennes’ Honda that has crashed into a wall.
After the second restart, a few drivers had problems. Rob Huff lost fifth position because of a flat front tyre; Gabriele Tarquini retired from eighth with a broken rim, the consequence of collision with Yvan Muller; another collision between John Filippi and Aurélien Comte forced the latter to retire.
While Vernay was able to create a small gap ahead of Bennani, Oriola successfully defended the third position from Yann Ehrlacher. Thed Björk finished in fifth position, followed by James Thompson and Norbert Michelisz; Esteban Guerrieri won the battle with Muller for the eighth place and Tom Coronel completed the top ten.
Denis Dupont did not make the grid as his Audi RS3 LMS car was too much damaged after the shunt he had in this morning’s Qualifying.
The 21-lap Race 3 will start at 6:10pm local time.

Quotes:
Jean-Karl Vernay: “It is great! I really wanted to win in my first race meeting with the Audi. The team made a mega-job and I took a very good start. Then I pushed very hard and set a couple of very fast laps, because I wanted to create a gap between me and Bennani, This is his own circuit and I knew that he would try everything to win. I did not want to find him on my back in the final laps.”

Picture: Audi