Lights to flag victory for Gavrilov at the Kazan Ring

Klim Gavrilov took a lights-to-flag victory in Race 1 at the Kazan Ring, beating Andrej Maslennikov by just under five seconds at the chequered flag. The LADA Sport ROSNEFT car of Kirill Ladygin was third, a little over half-a-second behind Maslennikov.
Gavrilov made a great start from pole position, but survived a scare at Turn 1 when there was contact between his Audi and Maslennikov’s CUPRA. Maslennikov’s teammate Ivan Lukashevich had started alongside Gavrilov on the front row of the grid, but was passed by Maslennikov on the run down to Turn 1 and Maslennikov would then spend much of the race attempting to pass Gavrilov for the lead.
Another driver who made a great start was championship leader Dmitry Bragin, who had qualified in twelfth place. He made up five places on the opening lap and was battling with Pavel Kalmanovich for sixth on Lap 2. Early on the following lap, his championship rival Aleksey Dudukalo ended up in the gravel after contact with the Volkswagen of Ibragim Akhmadov at Turn 1. The incident brought out the safety car while the two cars were recovered.
When the race resumed, Bragin continued his progress up the leaderboard, first passing Kalmanovich for sixth place and then diving up the inside of Lukashevich one lap later to move into fifth position. Bragin would eventually finish sixth, however, after Kalmanovich overtook him again on the penultimate lap.
Behind the pair, there were a number of battles for positions in the lower half of the top ten, with Lukashevich making contact with Grigoriy Burlutskiy on Lap 8 while the pair were fighting for seventh place and Lev Tolkachev locking his brakes and dropping out of the top ten on Lap 13.
There were no such dramas for Gavrilov, however, who held off Maslennikov and then pulled away when Maslennikov was forced to defend second place from Ladygin. Behind the podium finishers, Minnakhmetov finished fourth, Kalmanovich was fifth ahead of Bragin and Anton Badoev, Lukashevich, Mikhail Grachev and Ivan Chubarov completed the top ten.
The result, together with Dudukalo’s non-finish, meant Bragin now leads the championship by a single point from Ladygin, with Gavrilov having moved past Dudukalo into third place.
The second race will start tomorrow at 12:10 local time (11:10 CET) with Lukashevich on pole position and Anton Badoev alongside him; live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.

Race 1
1. Klim Gavrilov (Carville Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 15 laps
2. Andrej Maslennikov (Lukoil Racing, CUPRA), 4.946
3. Kirill Ladygin (Rosneft LADA Sport, LADA Vesta Sport), 5.541
4. Irek Minnakhmetov (Tschingiskhan Motorsport, Audi RS 3 LMS), 12.787
5. Pavel Kalmanovich (TAIF Motorsport, Audi RS 3 LMS), 15.097

Championship points
1. Bragin 106 pts; 2. Ladygin 105; 3. Gavrilov 98