Mityaev wins Race 1 at Sochi and Ladygin is the champion

TCR Russia’s first race at Sochi turned into a perfect triumph for the LADA Sport Rosneft team that won the race with Mikhail Mityaev and the championship with Kirill Ladygin.
The title fight was decided seconds after the start when Dmitry Bragin, Ladygin’s only contender, got the worst from a collision and spun off. Bragin fought to the bitter end, he rejoined, tried to recover and clocked the fastest lap, but eventually was forced to pit for changing the rear left wheel that had been damaged in the incident and so finished 13^th. This put Ladygin in the position to cruise to the end in fourth position.
The start was chaotic, with pole sitter Egor Orudzhev, Mityaev and Bragin negotiating the first turn abreast ahead of the charging field. A few hundredths metres down the track, Artem Slutskiy ran wide and rejoined; his manoeuvre forced Bragin to swerve to the right and make contact with Pavel Kalmanovich. Bragin’s Audi spun off and crashed backwards into the tyre wall; Bragin managed to rejoin amidst the Super Production cars. Luckily for him, one of the Super Production cars stopped on the track and prompted the safety car into action and so Bragin could queue behind Valters Zviedris who closed the TCR line. 
Racing resumed in lap 4, with Mityaev leading from Orudzhev, Grigory Burlutskiy and Artem Slutskiy, with Ladygin 5^th. In lap 6, Andrej Maslennikov and Ivan Lukashevich moved into P7 and P8 respectively, overtaking Kalmanovich, while Bragin passed Zviedris and Tolkachev advancing to 11^th. 
At the end of lap 7, Bragin pitted to change the rear left wheel, while Burlutskiy dropped down from P3.
Mityaev went to claim his second win of the season from Orudzhev and Artem Slutskiy who finished on the podium for the first time on his second appearance in the championship; Ladygin was classified fourth and secured the title before the final race that will start at 16:15 local times (14:15 CET); live streaming at www.tcr-series.com. 

Sochi – Race 1
1. Mikhail Mityaev (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport), 9 laps
2. Egor Orudzhev (Lukoil Racing Team, Audi RS 3 LMS), 0.900
3. Artem Slutskiy (Carville Racing, Hyundai i30 N), 2.736
4. Kirill Ladygin (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport), 6.924
5. Zakhar Slutskiy (Carville Racing, Hyundai i30 N), 7.476

Championship points
1. K. Ladygin 217 pts; 2. D. Bragin 178; 3. A. Maslennikov 161

Picture: Grigory Golyshev