Blog
UPDATE: René Kircher was disqualified a couple hours after the race for breach of BOP regulations. Davit Kajaija moved to second place and Carlo Czepiel gained third place. For Sunday´s race, Philipp Dietrich will start from the pole-position.
Maťo Homola thrilled his fans with a commanding victory on his home track, Slovakia Ring, in the first race of the fourth round of the TCR Eastern Europe. Homola took the lead during the first lap and never looked back, finishing 2.528 seconds in front of René Kircher, who had started from pole position.
Heavy rain at Slovakia Ring delayed the afternoon program, and the opening race of the fourth TCR Eastern Europe round was declared as a wet race. Despite the track still being wet, the sun was already shining, and all drivers in the field chose to start on slick tires because the track was about to dry soon.
Fortunately, the crucial first corner happened without any incidents, and the whole field continued with Kircher leading, defending his position from Homola, who immediately attacked the German driver and took the lead in the middle sector of the track.
From then on, Homola in his Hyundai Elantra led the race without trouble, controlling the pace and the gap behind him. Kircher with Honda was racing in second place, and third was his team mate from Mertel Motorsport Davit Kajaia, who had a great start and moved up to third from fifth in the first corner after the start.
Meanwhile, Giacomo Ghermandi, starting from fourth place, had some contact in the opening lap, and a piece of bodywork was hanging out of the right side of his Audi. Adam Kout with Hyundai passed Ghermandi for fourth place soon after, and the next driver on the line to pass Ghermandi was Kout´s team mate from Hyundai Janík Motorsport Carlo Czepiel, who lost three places after the start. Czepiel managed to pass Ghermandi after a couple of tries and moved into fifth place behind Kout, whom Czepiel passed in the late stage of the race.
Tobias Poschik from Aditis Racing Team was another driver following Ghermandi closely in sixth place. With a gap behind Poschik´s Audi was fight between Philipp Dietrich and Petr Fulín Jr. for eighth place. Fulín then overtook Dietrich and brought home first points in the season. Adam Rzepecki was holding tenth place, but unfortunately, he outbraked himself, and Petr Čížek moved into the tenth place. Čížek was the biggest gainer in the race, as he started second to last and finished the race in the points for the 22nd time in a row.
As Homola is the overall winner, René Kircher won the Junior class in front of Carlo Czepiel and Tobias Poschik, who is also winner of the Trophy class with Sebastian Kolakowski second and Antonio Citera third.
For the tomorrow races the first eight drivers are going to start in reversed order, that means Petr Fulín jr. on the pole-position next to the second Tobias Poschik.
