The Hyundai boys swap places and encore

The Hyundai boys swap places and encore After coming home first and second in yesterday’s Race 1 at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas, the pair of Hyundai i30 N TCR cars took another 1-2 finish in the second TCR race of the Pirelli World Challenge.
This time it was Mark Wilkins who claimed victory ahead of yesterday’s winner Michael Lewis. The two Korean cars showed a faster pace than the rest of the field, but after the rolling start they were chased by Martin Jensen’s Alfa Romeo Giulietta and Ryan Eversley’s Honda Civic.
However, on lap 2 Eversley locked the front wheels and hit the back of Jensen’s car. The Dane was forced to retire with a broken rear suspension, while Eversley was given a drive- through and rejoined at the back of the field.
Wilkins’ and Lewis’ leading gap was erased on lap 7, by a safety car intervention following a collision between Matt Fassnacht’s Audi RS3 LMS and a car of the TCA class.
When the race resumed on lap 10, the Hyundai men pulled away while the Audi cars of Anthony Geraci and Jérimy Daniel were fighting for the third position; they were closely followed by Michael Hurczyn’s Volkswagen Golf GTI and the recovering Eversley.
The latter was able to overtake both Hurczyn and Daniel on lap 12, moving up to fourth and began to close in on Geraci. But time was ticking out and Geraci maintained the third position by 0.171 seconds. However, after the race Geraci was demoted to fourth by a Stewards decision.
There was a nice battle for fifth place that was won by Nate Vicent’s Volkswagen ahead of Daniel and the other Golf cars of Mason Filippi and Hurczyn.
Double Indy 500 winner Brian Herta, the owner of the team that runs the Hyundai cars said: “I can’t be happier! Both our drivers made a great job during the whole weekend.”
And Wilkins echoed: “What a fantastic weekend for the team! We made a few changes after yesterday’s Race 1 and they worked well. But Michael is very quick, he won yesterday and today he put the pressure on me all the time. I had to keep him behind and save the tyres at the same time.”
The Pirelli World Challenge will resume at the Virginia International Raceway on April 28/29.