Björk wins, Ehrlacher takes TCR World Tour lead as home heroes suffer at Hungaroring

Thed Björk was the winner of the second TCR World Tour and TCR Europe race at the Hungaroring, as Cyan Racing team-mate Yann Ehrlacher assumed the TCR World Tour lead.

The cheering grandstands were almost silent after the opening lap, as the three drivers many had come to watch were involved in a messy crash.

Serbia’s Dušan Borković made a slow start from reversed-grid pole and was passed by Björk before they even reached the pit exit.

Frédéric Vervisch also passed Borković by taking to the outside at turn one. He got a light tap on the rear from Borković as he exited the corner, which was instigated by Santiago Urrutia behind knocking into the back of Borković.

Urrutia then nerfed Borković again, sending him spinning across into Hungarian home hero Norbert Michelisz. Viktor Andersson somehow avoided hitting either of them, but Viktor Davidovski clipped Michelisz’s spun car as he went past it and that sent him careering into Losonczy, another Hungarian racer with loud home support.

Davidovski retired on the spot, Losonczy drove with a heavily damaged front-end back to the pits and retired there, and the World Tour’s pre-race points leader Michelisz took longer to get going again after the crash due to a broken wheel but managed to get to the pits and then rejoin the race just in time to avoid losing two laps while the rest of the field circulated behind the safety car.

However Michelisz soon had to return to the pits for further inspections, and Urrutia joined him there but only as he had been given a drive-through penalty for causing the collision.

Björk mastered the restart, returning to racing speed before even reaching the last corner and so ensuring he did not come under attack at turn one. He pulled away by 1.7 seconds in the first full lap of green flag action, then continued to race away and finished the 15-lap race with 1.537s in hand.

It was his first victory in a global touring car competition since winning at Motorland Aragon in the World Touring Car Cup back in 2020.

Rob Huff came from 12th on the grid to finish second, and was already up to fifth by lap one. On lap six, the one following the restart lap, he passed Mikel Azcona exiting turn one, went around the outside of Urrutia at turn two and then overtook Comtoyou Racing team-mate Vervisch at the turn 12 right-hander, and quickly pulled away from what then became the fight for third.

Urrutia exited that battle at the end of lap six by taking his penalty, while Vervisch held off Azcona, Néstor Girolami and Ehrlacher for nine laps to make the podium for the third time this year. There were several instances of contact between the quartet, often with a concertina effect as they knocked into each other while running close together, but ultimately none of them were able to make any overtakes and they were over six seconds behind Huff at the finish.

Comtoyou’s Kobe Pauwels was the highest placed driver entered for TCR Europe points in seventh, and had Viktor Andersson finishing behind him on the road but being dropped to 13th in the overall classification due to a five-second penalty for track limits abuse.

That meant Ma Qing Hua finished eighth, Tom Coronel was ninth and debutant Ruben Volt was tenth. TCR Europe’s podium of points-scoring drivers was completed by Coronel and Kevin Ceccon, who finished a distant eleventh.

In addition to his drive-through penalty, Urrutia was given a stop-go penalty that was converted post-race into 40s added on to his race time, meaning he dropped from 16th to 18th.

Ehrlacher heads the standings on 195 points, 16 ahead of Michelisz and 27 ahead of Azcona.

Hungaroring concludes the European part of the TCR World Tour season, with teams heading to Uruguay for the next race on August 18-20.