Magnus beats Urrutia to victory in Spa Race 1

Gilles Magnus’ dream to win on his home racetrack came true in the first race of TCR Europe at Spa-Francorchamps. The young Belgian converted the pole position into him maiden win and jumped on top of the championship standings as well.
Magnus’ Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS and the similar car driven by Santiago Urrutia for Team WRT delivered a brilliant fight and eventually finished first and second, which meant the first podium result for the Uruguayan. Podium that was completed by another Belgian youngster, Maxime Potty in the WRT-run Volkswagen Golf GTI who recovered to third after a bad start.
It was a podium of youth with Magnus (19), Urrutia (22) and Potty (19) totalling 60 years among them.
Aurélien Comte lost the third place to Potty in the final sprint and salvaged a fourth place for the Peugeot patrol that had higher ambitions. Jimmy Clairet and Davit Kajaia were classified fifth and sixth, their best results to far in the season.
Josh Files and Julien Briché, who had arrived in Belgium as first and second in the standings, remained scoreless. The Briton paid this morning’s mistake that led to his Qualifying crash and retired, despite the team’s efforts to rebuild his car. The Frenchman retired as well after making a mistake in the early stages of the race.
During the final lap, there was an incident between Abdulla Al-Khelaifi and Lilou Wadoux and the French girl’s Peugeot rolled onto the gravel and stopped upside down
The second race will start tomorrow at 12:00 with Dušan Borković and Kajaia sharing the front row of the top-ten reverse grid; live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.

Race 1
1. Gilles Magnus  (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 9 laps
2. Santiago Urrutia (Team WRT, Audi RS 3 LMS), 1.551
3. Maxime Potty (Team WRT, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 6.708
4. Aurélien Comte (DG Sport Compétition, Peugeot 308), 6.757
5. Jimmy Clairet (Team Clairet Sport, Peugeot 308), 7.350

Championship points
1. Magnus 134 pts; 2. Files 112; 3. Briché 107