Photo: Cyan Racing

Ma Qing Hua snatches popular home win on last lap from Néstor Girolami

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Ma Qing Hua claimed a popular FIA TCR World Tour win on home grounds at the Zhuzhou International Circuit as he snatched the lead from Néstor Girolami on the last lap.

Hyundai driver Girolami started the race on pole and headed Lynk & Co’s Ma into the first corner.

A first safety car came on lap three Hu Heng stopped on track with suspension damage to his Audi RS 3 LMS.

The field was released again on lap nine with Girolami having Ma right on his tail.

Cyan Racing driver Santiago Urrutia, who started tenth, had a tough fight with BRC Hyundai driver Mikel Azcona for sixth place.

The Uruguayan driver managed to get past the Race 1 winner and then set his sights for Honda driver Marco Butti in fifth place.

Urrutia pushed Butti wide and got past, only for the Cyan Racing driver to hand the place back. Azcona tried following Butti past but instead damaged the front end of his Hyundai and remained behind.

Urrutia was able to get past Butti for fifth place a couple of laps later.

Azcona later dropped down to let team-mate and championship leader Norbert Michelisz past, as the Hungarian driver again had a quiet race down in eighth place. Azcona focused on defending from title rival Thed Björk who also seemed to struggle for pace down in tenth place.

Honda’s Esteban Guerrieri, who held third place for the majority of the race, suddenly slowed on the last lap and dropped from third to finish fifth.

This handed the final podium place to Yann Ehrlacher, who started eighth, with Cyan Racing team-mate Urrutia finishing fourth.

Ma upped the pressure on Girolami during the last couple of laps and was able to get past the Hyundai driver after several corners of wheel-to-wheel action and contact between the two.

Ma won the race by less than four tenths of a second ahead of Girolami to the delight of the Chinese crowd.

TCR China winner was Teamwork Motorsport driver David Zhu (Lynk & Co) who finished 12th ahead of Martin Cao of team Hyundai N.

Michelisz keeps the lead after the Chinese race weekend, but now just 10 points ahead of Guerrieri, 19 ahead of Björk, 23 ahead of Ehrlacher and 27 ahead of Azcona.

The next FIA TCR World Tour race is the legendary Macau season finale on November 14-17.