Stefano Comini was set to claim another victory as he had led for most of the distance and built a gap ahead of his competitors, when suddenly Kevin Gleason arrived on his heels and overtook him on lap 8.
The American driver defended the lead in the last two laps and claimed his second victory of the season, while Comini salvaged a valuable second place.
Another close fight took place between Gianni Morbidelli and Pepe Oriola; eventually the Italian crossed the line in third place, inches ahead of his rivals.
Oriola’s teammates Sergey Afanasyev and Jordi Gené came home in fifth and sixth, while Mikhail Grachev kept at bay Lorenzo Veglia and Loris Hezemans to score a brilliant seventh.
Fermando Monje claimed the last point position in tenth.
Michael Choi of Prince Racing Team provided the icing of the cake for Honda as he won the race of the TCR Asia Series.
Luca Rangoni managed to complete the race at the wheel of the Top Run Subaru, despite he only hit the track on the formation lap for the race.
The second race will take place tomorrow at 16.35 local time (10.35 CET).
Key moments
Grid – Rangoni’s Subaru makes its first appearance and lines up at the back of the grid, while Ma’s Ford is missing
Warm up lap – Mak loses control of his Opel Astra and hits the wall
Start – Comini sprints to the lead from Gleason and Morbidelli
Lap 1 – Oriola overtakes Morbidelli for third; Chou sends de Souza into a spin
Lap 2 – Oriola, Gleason and Morbidelli swap positions while fighting for second
Lap 3 – Gené overtakes Veglia for seventh
Lap 4 – Morbidelli chases Gleason who is second
Lap 5 – Veglia defends eighth place from Hezemans
Lap 6 – Gené overtakes Grachev for sixth
Lap 7 – Veglia knocks on Grachev’s rear bumper
Lap 8 – Gleason overtakes Comini and jumps into the lead
Lap 9 – Morbidelli and Oriola have a close fight for third
Lap 10 – Gleason beats Comini on the line, while Morbidelli saves third with a short gap on Oriola; Rangoni’s Subaru makes to the end in 15th position, Choi wins the TCR Asia race
What the drivers had to say
Kevin Gleason, winner: “It was a tough race and a nice second win for me, no doubt. I took a good start but had a lot of pressure from Oriola and Gianni in the early laps. Then, my pace improved throughout the laps and when Stefano lift off because of some trouble, I could take the lead. In the closing laps though, when his car was back to OK, I was under great pressure again. Definitely, a tough race, also because of the heath and night conditions, but there my experience in long-distance races helped…”
Stefano Comini, second: “I am a little bit disappointed for sure, but happy with my performance and the valuable championship points. Everything was going perfectly and I was feeling very comfortable with the car until some electronic problem with the gearbox arose. I lost the lead to Kevin and had to reset everything. The car eventually worked well again but it was impossible to overtake on this track.”
Gianni Morbidelli, third: “A very tough race for me, also because I didn’t feel perfectly well these days and during the race it got worse. The last couple of laps I was close to fainting. Regarding the race, I lost it at the start. I had a poor kick-off, with the wheels spinning and had to let Comini, Gleason and Oriola go. After I fought hard with Pepe and Kevin, but they defended well their positions, and rightly so. Overtaking on this track is not easy at all.”
George Choi, 1st TCR Asia: “It is very nice to win among the TCR Asia cars, I wasn’t expecting that and I thank my team for the very good work. I was lucky that some of the quicker rivals got tangled in incidents ahead of me. It was a very interesting experience to race with the drivers of the TCR International Series. Their level is very high and I could learn a lot from them.”
Qualifying – First pole position for Stefano Comini
The Qualifying session took place in the early afternoon and Stefano Comini of Target Competition claimed his first pole position in the TCR International Series.
The Swiss driver, who is currently second in the Drivers’ Championship, set the fastest lap on his first lap out of the pit in Q2 and decided not to make a second attempt in order to save his tyres for the races.
It was a risky move, because Gianni Morbidelli came very close to steal the pole from him, as he was clocked only 16 thousandths of a second slower.
Kevin Gleason was capable of a significant improvement compared to Q1, which propelled him to the third place on the grid for Race 1, ahead of Sergey Afanasyev and Pepe Oriola. The latter, the current championship leader, had his qualifying attempt spoiled by a slower car.
Tomas Engström qualified tenth and won pole position on the reverse grid for tomnorrow’s Race 2; the Swede will have Jordi Gené alongside him on the front row.
George Chou placed his SEAT León car in 13th position and on pole for the TCR Asia Series.
Top Run Subaru hits the track after never ending odyssey
The Top Run Subaru TSi TCR, made its debut in the TCR International Series after a never ending odyssey that ended when the car was finally delivered to the team only this afternoon, after the end of the qualifying session.
The original plan was to fly the car from Milan Malpensa to Singapore via Luxembourg. However, the freight company left the car on the ground in Luxembourg because of limited payload restrictions; then the Subaru was flown back to Malpensa.
‘Plan B’ was then to fly the car to Singapore via Seoul and deliver it to the track on Friday morning; but this time the cargo plane was forced to land back in Malpensa because of a technical issue. The 747F took off again after repairs, but by the time it made it to Seoul, no flights were scheduled to leave to Singapore in time to deliver the car by the weekend. So the car was flown to Kuala Lumpur and then trucked down for 350 kilometres to Singapore.
The team worked frantically to prepare the car for the first race and Luca Rangoni could finally take the start from the back of the grid. Despite some teething problems, Rangoni managed to finish the race in 15th position.
An amazing effort from the Italian team!