Tom Coronel comes through for Race 2 win, Girolami crashes out on final lap
Comtoyou Racing has enjoyed a fruitful WTCR round at the Slovakiaring thus far after Dutchman Tom Coronel was able to take the lead late in race two to secure the victory aboard his Audi RS 3 LMS.
Having battled with the Honda Civic Type-R TCR of Esteban Guerrieri for most of the race, a late mistake for the Argentinian running wide on lap eight allowed Coronel through to the lead, a position he held on to until the chequered flag.
The Audi driver came home just over a second ahead of the hard-charging Gilles Magnus in his Audi to take a first podium.
The final lap was marred by an incident between the Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR of Jean-Karl Vernay and Nestor Girolami’s Honda, the latter being tagged by the former and spun hard into the barriers, all but destroying the Civic Type-R and putting a hard blow to the Argentinian’s championship aspirations on a tough day for the Honda squad.
Even though he had a damaged car, Vernay held on to fourth on the road ahead of Mikel Azcona, the Spaniard setting the fastest lap of the race in his Cupra Leon Competición and holding on to the last spot in the top five positions.
Nicky Catsburg improved on his luck from the opening outing to take sixth as the first of the Hyundai i30 N TCR competitors, edging out his team-mate Norbert Michellisz and the two Lynk & Co machines of French duo Yann Ehrlacher and Yvan Muller, the top ten being rounded off by Tiago Monteiro in his Honda.
The final race for the weekend is set to start at 14:45 CEST with Nathanaël Berthon again starting from pole as he did in the opening race which he converted to a race victory.
