Petr Fulín wins S2000 title in Brno with a victory

Petr Fulín has won the 2013 FIA European Touring Car Cup S2000 drivers’ title with a lights to flag victory in Brno, leading his title rival Mat’o Homola in the race by more than eight seconds, whilst the Single-Make Trophy title is a three car scrap still to be decided in race two.

At the rolling start, Fulín held the lead into the first corner in his Krenek Motorsport BMW 320si, while Mat’o Homola was able to launch past the Chevrolet of Dušan Borković for second at the start in his BMW.

Homola was only briefly able to keep in touch with Fulín, with the Czech driver soon pulling out a comfortable lead over his Slovakian rival.

On the first lap there was contact between the two Single-Make Trophy SEATs of Nikolay Karamyshev and Norbert Nagy, with both dropping down the order after spinning off into the gravel. With Karamyshev going on to finish 15th overall and ninth in class, the Russian’s charge for the class title was effectively over at that point.

Dušan Borković was pressured by the sister Krenek BMW of Michal Matĕjovský for the first four laps of the race, until a late breaking pass by the Czech driver saw him move into third for all of half a second before he oversteered in the corner and spun out into the gravel and into retirement.

Borković found himself now under pressure from Ferenc Ficza in the Zengõ Motorsport SEAT León for the remainder of the race, though when encountering traffic on the final lap, this allowed Galaxy Racing’s Aurélien Comte to move ahead at that line and claim the class victory and strengthen the Frenchman’s title chances.

On lap eight, Mikhail Grachev’s Proteam BMW and the Campos Racing SEAT of Igor Skuz came together, with Skuz eliminated from the race.

Fulín’s victory sees the Czech driver now lead the S2000 standings by 12 points with just ten points remaining from race two.

In the Single-Make Trophy class, Mario Dablander continues to lead the standings on 59 points, and will start from pole position for race two thanks to the reverse top grid, with Aurélien Comte on 56 and Jordi Oriola on 54 points his only remaining rivals for the title.

In the S1600 class, Gilles Brucker took his first win of the season in his Team Lux Motor Ford Fiesta after a race long battle with already crowned champion Kevin Krammes.

The second and final race of the 2013 ETCC season takes place at 13:00 CET.