Gilles Magnus scores maximum to leap into points lead after Spa win

Gilles Magnus has soared into the lead of the TCR Europe series points lead after a perfect score on Saturday at his home circuit at Spa-Francorchamps, with the Comtoyou Racing Audi driver taking his first pole and win of the season in the same day.

Magnus held the lead from pole in his Audi RS 3 LMS, and then kept back the rival RS 3 LMS of WRT’s Santiago Urrutia throughout the race, despite briefly losing the lead after a divebomb move by the Uruguayan at La Source.

Magnus took the position back on the inside and on the run up to Eau Rouge, and went on to win the race by 1.5 seconds.

With the JSB Peugeot 308TCR of Julien Briché and the Hyundai of Josh Files retiring with damage, his chief rivals scored no points at Spa, with Magnus therefore moving 22 points clear of Files heading to tomorrow’s race.

“A home win is always fun,” said Magnus to TouringCarTimes.

“We’re leading the championship with a little advantage, and we came in quite a bit behind, so it couldn’t be better. Our opponents have taken zero points so far, and I took a pole and a win.

“Tomorrow will be trickier, but the pace is there. We start P10, but we have the pace to can get back into the top five.

“We’ll have to take some risks if we start P10, we’ll try to do our best but also think about the championship as well.”

Magnus started second on the grid two weeks’ ago at Hockenheim behind Files, but dropped back in the race, which he says is something he and the Comtoyou Racing team have worked on improving.

“We managed our tyres well in that race, that’s where we went wrong in Hockenheim. We’ve worked a lot on that, and now I’ve understood how to manage the tyres.