Blog
Milenko Vuković, of the Besagroup Vuković Motorsport team, has finally won a race in the TCR Eastern Europe championship. He was close to winning yesterday, but mechanical issues got in the way of his efforts. Sunday’s race took place without any trouble for him, making him the fourth winner out of four races so far this season.
Teammates from ADITIS Racing, Radim Adámek and Vít Smejkal, started from the first row, in front of Tomasz Rzepecki and Levente Losonczy. Sebastian Steibel and Bartosz Groszek started from the third row. The fourth row was occupied by yesterday’s podium finishers, Václav Janík and Petr Čížek. Ninth on the grid was previous race winner Patrick Sing. Milenko Vuković started second to last.
Radim Adámek made a beautiful start in his Audi and led the race after the first corner. However, Tomasz Rzepecki, with a VW Golf, made a move in the third turn and took the lead. Making a superb start in his Hyundai, Patrick Sing moved from ninth position up to fourth. But even better was Milenko Vuković, who started from 15th position and moved into first at the beginning of the second lap.
Vuković immediately began to widen the gap between himself and Tomasz Rzepecki, who was defending his position from Patrick Sing. However, he was not able to keep Sing behind his back and soon lost his position to two other Hyundai drivers, Václav Janík and Petr Semerád.
Bartosz Groszek made contact with Levente Losonczy in the last corner and, a couple of laps later, made a clear passing manoeuvre around Rzepecki. In the fifth lap, there were two separate incidents that happened one after another in the third corner. First, a collision took place between Carol Wittke and Radim Adámek, and, immediately afterwards, the same thing happened to Žarko Knego and Sebastian Steibel.
The safety car was sent onto the track and, five laps later, the green flag was waved. Vuković held the lead, thanks to the top speed of his Renault Mégane, so Sing had no chance and, instead, had to defend his position from Petr Semerád, who attacked him right after the restart. A lap later, Semerád dived into the third corner and passed Sing, securing second place.
Vuković crossed the finish line first, Semerád was second, and Sing third. The German driver was penalised, however, with 5 seconds added to his time for exceeding track limits. That downgraded him to fifth position, so, once again, third place was taken by Václav Janík and fourth was Bartosz Groszek.
Points for sixth place went to Tomasz Rzepecki in his VW Golf, seventh was former champion Milovan Vesnić, and, in eighth place, came yesterday’s podium finisher Petr Čížek. Sebastian Steibel finished ninth and the last point was taken by TCR debutant Vít Smejkal.
Petr Semerád won the TCR Eastern Europe Trophy, ahead of Václav Janík and Bartosz Groszek. Semerád was also the winner of the Junior category, with Patrick Sing coming in second and Tomasz Rzepecki coming in third.
Race Results
TCR Eastern Europe – Race 2
