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Tomáš Pekař achieved his fourth victory in the season on Sunday at Automotodrom Grobnik. The second Bartosz Groszek and third Carol Wittke repeated their podium results from Saturday. We saw many incidents during Race 2 and race was even red-flagged for a while.
The first seven drivers from Race 1 started to Race 2 in reversed order. It meant Petr Čížek took pole position ahead of second Sebastian Steibel and third Tomáš Pekař. The championship leader Michal Makeš started from fourth place and the Race 1 winner Milovan Vesnić was seventh on the grid.
Čížek had a bad start and he dropped to the end of the order. It was Michal Makeš who managed to take the lead in the opening moments. Sebastian Steibel was second and Tomáš Pekař third. But race was red-flagged shortly after that because of the big collision after the start. Sebastian Kolakowski, Lukasz Stolarczyk and Žarko Knego innocently got entangled in this incident. Stolarczyk and Kolakowski crashed on the start/finish straight and Knego also retired a few turns later.
Red flag in Lap 1 meant that Petr Čížek got a second chance and started from pole position. In this case, he was much more successful and kept the lead. Pekař moved to second place. Vesnić was third ahead of fourth Steibel and fifth Makeš.
Čížek was able to stay ahead of Pekař despite the Carpek Service driver pushed at him. But the performance of Fullinrace Academy driver didn´t have a happy end. It was a problem with his splitter and this part flew away from his car eventually. Later, Čížek parked his Cupra Leon Competición TCR car off the track and didn´t finish.
It was a sad end of the race for Petr Čížek. Photo: Petr Frýba
After that, Tomáš Pekař was dominant and achieved his fourth victory in the 2021 TCR Eastern Europe season. The Carpek Service driver returned to the lead of the championship standings thanks to this success.
In the first laps after restart, Milovan Vesnić, Sebastian Steibel and Michal Makeš fought for third position. But this battle ended with a collision in Turn 1 and all three drivers went off the track. Vesnić and Steibel retired in a following moments. Makeš was able to continue but he was penalized by thirty seconds because stewards decided his maneuver was unsportsmanlike. It was Bartosz Groszek and Carol Wittke, who were on the podium with Pekař. They repeated their results from Race 1. Groszek finished second and Wittke was third.
Michal Makeš finished on fourth place in the end. But he dropped to sixth place after his penalty was applied. Radim Adámek was classified as fourth and Tomasz Rzepecki as fifth. Giacomo Ghermandi also got penalty of thirty seconds for contact with Sanel Cehic after the restart and finished 7th as a last classified driver. Cehic retired shortly after the contact with Ghermandi. The Italian was involved also in the big post-start incident.
Opening photo: Petr Frýba
