Ladygin extends his points lead with victory at the N Ring

Kirill Ladygin led a near-perfect race in his LADA Sport Rosneft Vesta to score his fourth win of the season at the N Ring circuit during the penultimate weekend of this year’s TCR Russia championship, with title rival Aleksey Dudukalo had to fight from the back of the grid to finish in eighth.
The reversed top ten draw put the Audi of Timur Shigabutdinov on pole ahead of Andrej Maslennikov’s Hyundai, with Ladygin starting third. Dudukalo was due to start tenth on the grid, but after failing to get away from his grid spot on the formation lap due to a gearbox issue, the Audi driver was required to start from the back of the grid.
The front row men didn’t get away well, with Ladygin threading between both of them to take the lead, with Maslennikov passing Shigabutdinov to take second at the first corner.
Shigabutdinov continued to slowly drop down the order, beind passed by both the AG Team cars of Pavel Kalmanovich and Rustam Fatkhutdinov early on, as well as his own teammate Dmitry Bragin, who was also able to pass Fatkhutdinov for fourth position on lap six.
Also on lap six, the two Carville Racing entries came together, with the Audi of Andrej Radoshnov hitting Grigoriy Burlutskyi’s Hyundai in the rear at Turn 1 while fighting for ninth. Burlutskyi was out with suspension damage caused from contact.
The safety car was soon called, but Burlutskyi’s car was nearly hit again as the LADA of Mikhail Mityaev didn’t see the yellow flags and ran out wide as Dudukalo slowed in front of him. Mityaev took to the grass to avoid Dudukalo, and nearly hit the parked car of Burlutskyi in the process.
The race restarted after five laps behind the safety car, and Ladygin again began to rebuild his lead over Maslennikov up front. The top seven drivers spaced themselves out, leaving the last major battle for seventh, which was between Timur Shigabutdinov and Dudukalo. Despite intense pressure, Dudukalo was unable to find a way past and had to settle for eighth.
Ladygin went on to win by three seconds and set the fastest lap on the way, extending his championship lead to 31 points over Dudukalo, with Bragin – who was dropped from fourth to sixth by a 5-second penalty for the incident with Lukashevich – just nine points further behind.
The final round of the season will be at Fort Grozny on October 10-11th.

Race 2
1. Kirill Ladygin (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport), 22 laps
2. Andrej Maslennikov (LUKOIL Racing Team, Hyundai i30 N), 3.088
3. Pavel Kalmanovich (AG Team, CUPRA), 5.179
4. Rustam Fatkhutdinov (AG Team, Audi RS 3 LMS), 6.290
5. Klim Gavrilov (VRC-Team, Hyundai i30 N), 7.341

Championship points
1. Kirill Ladygin 191 pts; 2. Aleksey Dudukalo 160; 3. Dmitry Bragin 151

Picture: TCR Russia/Grigory Golyshev