Win and points leadership for Langeveld at Zandvoort
Niels Langeveld took an authoritative win in front of his home crowd in Race 1 of the TCR Germany at Zandvoort. At the wheel of his Racing One Audi RS3 LMS, the Dutchman had no rivals.
Moreover, the success meant he took the leadership in the points standings, where he is tied in points (224) and race wins (2) with Harald Proczyk, who finished third in today’s race. However, Langeveld boasts a better string of results than the driver of the HP Racing Opel. Antti Buri (LMS Racing Audi) was second today, with Mike Halder (ADAC Sachsen Honda) finishing 4th ahead of Luca Engstler (Liqui Moly Team Engstler Hyundai). The same drivers, but in a different order (Engstler, Halder, Buri) complete the top-five in the overall standings with gaps of 30, 33 and 63 points respectively.
Today’s race was pretty uneventful, with the only noticeable feat striking right at the start, in the mid of the grid, when Michelle Halder stalled and her Cupra was collected by the Peugeot of Lukas Niedertscheider and the Volkswagen of Kai Jordan. The safety car was deployed to allow recovering the wrecked cars.
The race restarted in lap 5, with Langeveld pulling away easily ahead of Buri, Proczyk, Halder and Engstler. The Dutchman built a 3-second advantage in a couple of laps, with positions remaining stable. Benjamin Leuchter (Max Kruse Racing Volkswagen) was also an early retiree from the race, with mechanical problems.
While there were no changes at the top, Simon Reicher, Théo Coicaud, Max Hesse and Luke Wankmüller ran in a more compact group while fighting for P6, with Niko Kankkunen and Florian Thoma duelling a little further aback. No major changes, though, were to be reported, while during the penultimate lap, Jasmin Preisig’s Steibel Motorsport Opel went wide at Tarzan and remained stuck in the gravel.
Race 2 will take place tomorrow morning at 9:50; live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.
