Lights-to-flag win for John Filippi in TCR Europe’s Race 1

John Filippi recorded his third maximum points score in the TCR Europe season when he took a lights-to-flag win in Race 1 at Circuit Paul Ricard. The French driver finished ahead of Nicola Baldan with Kobe Pauwels completing the podium. The points leader Tom Coronel finished fourth as the Comtoyou-run Audi RS 3 LMS cars filled the top four places.

Pole-sitter Filippi got away cleanly at the start, but alongside him on the front row of the grid, Coronel wasn’t so good, and a poor start saw him passed by both Baldan and Pauwels, who sat on P4 and P3 respectively. Coronel dropped to fourth ahead of the SP Compétition CUPRA of 2017 TCR Europe Champion Aurélien Comte.

The four Audi cars ran together for the entire ten-lap race, with Filippi gradually easing away slightly from Baldan, but Coronel right behind Pauwels on each lap. While the leading group eased away, Comte drove a lonely race in fifth place and was never threatened, although behind him there were some good battles going on between Ruben Volt’s ALM Motorsport Honda Civic Type R FL5, Viktor Davidovski’s Comtoyou Audi and Lewis Brown’s Volcano Motorsport Audi. Brown had been given a two-place grid penalty after making a practice start in Qualifying, which meant he started from eighth on the grid. Davidovski passed Volt for P6 on the opening lap, but the trio would continue to fight throughout the race. Also on the opening lap, there was contact between the CUPRA of Sacha Bottemanne and Daniel Tkachenko’s Volcano Motorsport Audi. Bottemanne retired, while Tkachenko limped back to the pits for repairs, however his race too ultimately ended in retirement. 

On Lap 4, Volt dived passed Davidovski in the last corner to briefly grab sixth place, but the Honda ran wide and so Davidovski was able to retake the position. Volt tried the same move one lap later and this time made it stick, with Brown also briefly passing Davidovski for P7 before the Macedonian retook the place. 

The remainder of the race was fairly processional, although Coronel continued to threaten Pauwels’ third place. When the chequered flag fell, Filippi’s winning margin over Baldan was just over one seconds, with Pauwels finishing under half a second clear of Coronel. The result means that both Filippi and Pauwels have closed the gap on Coronel in the standings to 28 and 49 points respectively.

Race 2 will start Sunday at 12:10 CEST, with live streaming on tcr-series.tv.

Le Castellet – Race 1

1. John Filippi (Comtoyou, Audi RS 3 LMS), 10 laps

2. Nicola Baldan (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 1.141

3. Kobe Pauwels (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 2.755

Championship points

1. T. Coronel, 327; 2. J. Filippi, 299; 3. K. Pauwels 278

Picture: TCR Europe