Victory for Buri in Race 2 while Fugel retakes the series lead

Antti Buri took victory in an incident-packed second race at Hockenheim, but second place was enough to restore Dominik Fugel to the lead of the championship standings. Fugel’s brother Marcel finished third, giving the Profi Car Honda team two of the three podium places at the chequered flag.
Much of the drama happened in the opening seconds of the race. Pole-sitter - and series leader - Harald Proczyk was beaten to Turn 1 by Marcel Fugel, who’d started alongside him on the front row of the grid. Proczyk was then tapped into a half-spin coming through Turn 1, but there was worse to come. Contact with Nico Gruber in Turn 2 saw both the Hyundai cars forced to retire on the spot, with the safety car called into action while the cars were recovered. The incident also involved Proczyk’s teammate Jan Seyffert, meaning that three of the four Hyundai top cars were out of the race.
Racing resumed after around ten minutes, with Marcel Fugel leading from Buri and René Kircher’s Volkswagen Golf GTI in third place ahead of the CUPRA León Competición of Felix Wimmer. Dominik Fugel, who’d started from tenth on the grid after mechanical woes in Qualifying, was steadily carving his way through the field, passing Philipp Walsdorf’s Opel Astra for P5 and then Wimmer for P4 on the following lap. One lap later, contact between Harri Salminen and Džiugas Tovilavičius at the hairpin saw the Finn drop back before entering the pits and retiring. 
At the head of the field, the second half of the race was hectic. First Buri passed Marcel Fugel to take the lead on lap 10, then Dominik Fugel passed Kircher for third place one lap later, squeezing Kircher onto the grass coming through the Parabolica. On the following lap, Marcel allowed his brother to pass at the hairpin to move up into second place, but shortly afterwards the Stewards instructed Dominik Fugel to switch places with Kircher because of the passing move at the Parabolica and so Fugel effectively lost two places as he had to drop to fourth once again behind Marcel and Kircher. 
While Buri was cruising to a straightforward victory, Dominik Fugel repeated his passing moves on first Kircher for P3 and one lap later, again at the hairpin, his brother Marcel for P2. With Buri around three seconds clear, however, the final few laps weren’t enough for Fugel to move close enough to challenge the Finn and so Buri took his first race win of 2020 with Dominik and Marcel Fugel claiming second and third. Kircher was fourth and Albert Legutko was fifth.
The result means that Dominik Fugel has retaken the championship lead from Proczyk - the Honda driver now heads the standings by 4 points with Buri having moved up into third position, just two points behind Proczyk. 
The TCR Germany series next heads to the Sachsenring over the first weekend in October.

Race 2
1. Antti Buri (Engstler Motorsport, Hyundai i30 N), 17 laps
2. Dominik Fugel (Profi Car Team, Honda Civic Type R Fk7), 2.887
3. Marcel Fugel (Profi Car Team, Honda Civic Type R Fk7), 4.632
4. René Kircher (Team Oettinger, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 5.888
5. Albert Legutko (Legutko Racing, Honda Civic Type R Fk2), 13.606

Championship points
1. Dominik Fugel 95 pts; 2. Harald Proczyk 91; 3. Antti Buri 89 

Picture: ADAC Motorsport