Levante Losonczy battles to race two honours at Brno
Levante Losonczy secured victory in the second race of the weekend for the TCR Europe series at Brno, with Franco Girolami extending his points lead after a post-race penalty for title rival Aurelien Comte.
Losonczy started the race from pole and would battle with Bartosz Groszek for most of the first lap before he was overhauled by Ignacio Montenegro to make it a Honda 1-2 at the front.
Further down the field however Zarko Knego and Petr Eek came together and went off track, resulting in the safety car being deployed so their cars could be recovered, with racing getting back underway on lap five.
Losonczy was able to control the restart ahead of Montenegro, with Goszek looking to try and keep Giovanni Scarmardi at bay – although the latter would instead find himself losing out after the restart when he was run off line to allow Comte through into fourth after a strong start from the Frenchman.
Behind, points leader Girolami was on the move in his Cupra, fighting his way forwards into the top eight after the restart as part of a group of cars squabbling behind the Lynk & Co of Viktor Andersson.
Girolami quickly cleared Adam Kout to move into sixth spot and set his sights on Andersson ahead, whilst Groszek and Comte had closed onto the rear of Montenegro for second spot.
That allowed Losonczy to break away at the front, with Montenegro also given some breathing space as Groszek and Comte squabbled over third spot, which in turn allowed Girolami to close in on the battle for the final podium position.
Girolami saw his chance to make a move on the tenth lap, sneaking inside the Cupra heading into the stadium section and moving into fourth only for the Frenchman to immediately reclaim the position at the next corner.
As Losonczy cleared off at the front to secure the win ahead of Montenegro, the battle continued for third and came to a head on the final lap of the race when Comte tagged Groszek into a half-spin that knocked the Audi man down behind Girolami and Andersson.
Comte would take the flag in third spot as a result but was then handed a five second time penalty that dropped him back to ninth spot – the same position in which he had started.
It promoted Girolami up into third spot to allow him to extend his lead in the standings, with Andersson taking fourth and Groszek taking the flag in fifth spot ahead of Kout.
Martin Kadlecik took seventh from Felipe Fernandez, with the penalised Comte and Scamardi rounding out the top ten.
The TCR Europe season finale takes place at Valencia on September 29.
