Kalmanovich wins TCR Russia’s Race 1 at Moscow Raceway

Pavel Kalmanovich took his second victory of the season in TCR Russia’s opening race at the Moscow Raceway, crossing the finish line just under nine-tenths of a second ahead of Egor Orudzhev. Completing the podium was LADA Sport’s Kirill Ladygin, who extended his championship lead over Dmitry Bragin.
At the start, there were slight contacts as the field headed towards Turn 1, but pole-sitter Orudzhev kept the lead. Behind him, both Zakhar Slutskiy and Kalmanovich (who’d started from P5) passed Ivan Lukashevich on the opening lap, with Slutskiy immediately attacking Orudzhev for the lead. On Lap 2, however, Slutskiy made an ill-judged move around the outside and dropped two places, which allowed Kalmanovich to close in on Orudzhev and Ladygin to move up into third place.
The battle between the leading pair would be short-lived, as on the next lap the CUPRA passed the Audi to take the lead and Kalmanovich was then never seriously threatened. Ladygin was fighting with Lukashevich for P3 in a scrap that the LADA driver would ultimately win, with Lukashevich then coming under attack from Slutskiy in a battle that would last for several laps; the pair headed down the straight side-by-side on Lap 5, with Lukashevich ultimately emerging as the stronger of the two.
On Lap 6, one of the cars in the Super Production class suffered an engine problem that put oil onto the track on the run down to the last corner. Another car hit the oil patch and went off and the safety car was deployed for several laps while the two cars were recovered, and marshals could clear up the oil.
Racing resumed on Lap 10 and Kalmanovich timed his restart well. Bragin passed Andrej Maslennikov for P6 on that lap, with Grigoriy Burlutskiy muscling his way past Lev Tolkachev on the next lap to move into the top ten. The final few laps then saw Aydar Nuriev pressuring Tolkachev for P11, but the positions remained unchanged at the chequered flag.
The second race will start at 16:15 local time (15:15 CEST); live streaming at www.tcr-series.com.

Moscow Raceway – Race 1
1. Pavel Kalmanovich (AG Team, CUPRA), 13 laps
2. Egor Orudzhev (Lukoil Racing Team, Audi RS 3 LMS), 0.878
3. Kirill Ladygin (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport), 1.563
4. Ivan Lukashevich (Lukoil Racing Team, Hyundai i30 N), 1.849
5. Zakhar Slutskiy (Carville Racing, Hyundai i30 N), 2.327

Championship points:
1. K. Ladygin 132 pts; 2. D. Bragin 101; 3. P. Kalmanovich 97

Picture: Grigory Golyshev