Petr Fulín takes victory in his home race

Guest driver Petr Fulín took victory in Race 2 at Most in the Czech Republic, but the thirty-minute race was packed full of incidents and the podium positions were only decided on the very last lap.
The dramas began even before the formation lap, as the Wolf-Power Racing Cupra of Oliver Holdener was pushed to the pits after suffering what appeared to be an oil leak. That left a gap on the reverse grid alongside pole-sitter Théo Coicaud and when the start lights went off, a poor start from Coicaud saw several cars dive for the gap. It was the Cupra of Fulín that headed into Turn 1 in the lead and the Czech driver then fought for much of the race with Luca Engstler with the leading rookie Michelle Halder in third place.
The safety car was deployed twice during the race; first on Lap 3 to allow the marshals to retrieve Kai Jordan’s VW Golf from the gravel at Turn 7 and again on Lap 7 while the Golf of Coicaud was recovered following contact with Sando Kaibach’s Audi.
While Fulín, Engstler and Michelle Halder ran for most of the race in the top three positions, Michelle’s brother Mike dropped from fourth place to well down the leaderboard after incurring a drive-through for causing a collision. He eventually recovered to finish in tenth place ahead of Holdener who started from the pit lane and carved his way through the 27-car field to finish eleventh.
The most bizarre incident of the race was reserved for the dying minutes. After briefly snatching the lead from Fulín, Engstler mistakenly celebrated finishing in second place one lap too soon by weaving from side to side after crossing the finish line and was passed by Michelle Halder. The Cupra drivers then held Engstler’s Volkswagen at bay for the final lap and so Halder finished second behind Fulín. Since the Czech driver was ineligible to score points, Halder took maximum points as well as winning the prize for the Rookie trophy while Engstler could only hold his head in his hands when he arrived back in the pit lane.
Behind the trio, Niels Langeveld in an Audi RS3 LMS finished fourth after a great battle with the Opel Astra of championship leader Harald Proczyk, with Max Hesse (Audi RS3 LMS), Dominik Fugel (Honda Civic), Niko Kankkunen (Volkswagen Golf), Justin Haussermann (Volkswagen Golf) and Mike Halder (Honda Civic) completing the top ten.
The championship classification is topped by Proczyk with 118 points, ahead of Engstler 110 and Langeveld 100.
TCR Germany will resume at Red Bull Ring on 9/10 June.