Wittke wins Brno Race 1 as the title fight goes down to the wire

Carol Wittke took his first TCR Eastern Europe victory in Brno’s Race 1. The German driver recovered after a poor start from the pole position and beat Bartosz Groszek and his own teammate Petr Čižek in what was a brilliant result for the Fullinrace Academy team on their home ground.
Michal Makeš and Tomas Pekař where classified fourth and fifth, and so the title fight will be decided in tomorrow’s Race 2. The drivers must drop their two weakest results of the season and Makeš has already dropped 8 points for the sixth place in Grobnik’s Race 2, while his next drop would be 12 points. As for Pekař, he will not drop any results, because he was not classified in two races. The actual gap is 19 points, with 26 on offer in Race 2 in which they will start second (Pekař) and third (Makeš) from the top-six reversed grid.
Wittke and Čižek did not start well from the front row and so it was the third-placed Groszek who took the lead in his Horňák-Aditis Audi RS 3 LMS ahead of Makeš and Čižek. It took only a few corners to Wittke for moving into second ahead of his teammate and the championship leader. In lap 2, Čižek too passed Makeš for P3.
Behind them, Hungarian rookie Gergő Báldi had moved up into sixth after starting from P8, while Pekař was chasing Giacomo Ghermandi for the seventh place. 
Wittke was keeping Groszek under pressure and finally overtook him at the end of the fourth lap, leaving the Pole defending the second position from Čižek.
Halfway-through the race, Ghermandi began to drop due to tyres problems, which promoted Pekař to seventh. The Czech took the opportunity to attack and pass Báldi and Sebastian Steibel, climbing to fifth. In the final laps he tried to close the gap to Makeš, but eventually had to settle in fifth. The same applied to Čižek, as despite all his efforts he couldn’t steal second from Groszek.
The second race is due to start at 12:35 CEST on Sunday, with Sebastian Steibel on pole position; live streaming at www.tcr-series.tv. 

Brno – Race 1
1. Carol Wittke (Fullinrace Academy, CUPRA Leon Competición), 11 laps
2. Bartosz Groszek (Horňák-Aditis, Audi RS 3 LMS), 3.960
3. Petr Čižek (Fullinrace Academy, CUPRA Leon Competición), 4.381
4. Michal Makeš (Mičánek Motorsport, CUPRA), 15.677
5. Tomas Pekař (Carpek Service, CUPRA), 16.033

Championship points
1. M. Makeš 187 pts; 2. T. Pekař 168; 3. C. Wittke 132

Picture: TCR Eastern Europe/Petr Frýba