Reis and Barrio win the endurance race at Termas de Río Hondo

Raphael Reis and Jorge Barrio won the first of TCR South America’s two endurance races; the Brazilian-Argentine pair drove their W2 Pro GP CUPRA Leon Competición to a lights-to-flag victory in the one-hour race at Termas de Río Hondo. Damián Fineschi and Facundo Marques finished a brilliant second in a PRO Racing Peugeot 308, while the podium was completed by the Toyota Corolla of Bernardo Llaver and Gastón Iansa. 

Qualifying – Barrio and Reis placed their CUPRA on pole after they both topped their own session. Barrio was fastest amongst the Guest drivers with a lap of 1:49.231, ahead of Fineschi (1:49.576) and Iansa (1:49.980). Then, Reis posted the best time of 1:50.107 in the session for the series’ regulars beating Fineschi’s co-driver Marques (1:50.154) and Rafael Suzuki (1:50.166).

On the grid, the CUPRA of Barrio and Reis shared the front row with the Peugeot 308 of Fineschi-Marques, while Llaver-Iansa (Toyota) and Suzuki-Matías Signorelli (Lynk & Co) filled row 2.

Race – At the start, Barrio retained the lead from Iansa, Marques, Suzuki and Juan Manuel Casella; in the middle of the pack there was a collision between Ignacio Montenegro’s Honda and José Manuel Sapag’s Toyota. They dropped down the order but rejoined; later on, Sapag crashed and retired in lap 8. 

As Barrio built a gap, Iansa and Marques put in a close fight for the second place until they both opened the pit stop sequence after 29 minutes. Their teammate emerged from the pits in reversed order, with Fineschi ahead of Llaver. The leader pitted two laps later, at the end of lap 17, handing the car to Reis, while Rodrigo Baptista was the last to stop from the lead and was replaced by his father Adalberto in the Cobra Racing Toyota with twenty minutes to go.

The last part of the race saw Reis controlling his leadership that floated between 6 and 7 seconds over Fineschi, while Llaver managed to retain the third position despite being chased by Matías Milla who had replaced Casella. The most thrilling moments were offered by the battle for P6 between Juan Pablo Bessone’s Peugeot, Felipe Lapenna’s CUPRA and Lucas Colombo Russell’s Honda that finished in the order after a number of scraps. However, Bessone and his codriver Ever Franetovich were demoted two places for and incident between Bessone and Colombo Russell.

The seventh position of Colombo Russell meant that his co-driver Montenegro retained the first place in the standings, though his lead has been reduced to 15 points over Llaver, while Reis moved up into third, 11 further points behind.

The next event will be the second endurance round, on 9/11 June at Interlagos.

Termas de Río Hondo – Race

1. R. Reis/J. Barrio (W2 Pro GP, CUPRA Leon Competición), 24 laps

2. D. Fineschi/F. Marques (PMO Racing, Peugeot 308), 7.626

3. B. Llaver/G. Iansa (Toyota Gazoo Racing, Toyota Corolla GRS), 15.930

Championship points

1. I. Montenegro, 187 pts; 2. B. Llaver, 172; 3. R. Reis 161 

Picture: TCR South America/Hernán Capa