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Benjamin Lessennes wins the first sprint race at Mettet

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Boutsen-Ginion Honda driver Benjamin Lessennes won the first of the four sprint races today at the Circuit Jules Tacheny at Mettet, finishing ahead of Opel’s Fred Caprasse, who took a small bite out of Honda’s Stéphane Lémeret, who finished third.

Delahaye Racing’s Amaury Richard was due to start from pole position in his Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, but the driveshaft failed on the formation lap, promoting DG Sport Opel’s Caprasse to effective pole position for the start.

Caprasse’s lead didn’t last for long however, as Lessennes overtook the Astra at the final turn Paquay at the end of lap two, and held his own in the lead.

The race was relatively uneventful after this, though Fred Bouvy in the Peugeot 308 slowly dropped down the order, passed by Willem Meijer’s SEAT and Vincent Radermecker’s Volkswagen later in the race, before Radermecker then pitted with two laps to go and dropped to tenth in the final order.

Caprasse and co-driver Pierre-Yves Corthals now close to 33.5 points behind Lémeret in the championship, after the drop scores are now confirmed, with 75 points remaining from the last three races.

Race 2 follows imminently with the grid as per the results of Race 1.