The second race of the season got underway at the Slovakiaring, and after the first 55 minutes of racing, Eric Scalvini and Salvatore Tavano (Cupra Leon VZ) are still in front – as they were throughout Friday. In round two of the series promoted by Riza International, which is sharing the track with the GTC Endurance Challenge, the reigning champions were the class of the field once more, taking the race lead in the TCR Sequential class.
Though Tavano held the lead brilliantly at the start, his teammate Aaron Klug (Cupra Leon Competicion) lost second position to Alessandro Lisi (Audi RS3 LMS). The former was later handed a drive-through penalty for an incorrect stating position, thus promoting championship leader Vedat Ali Dalokay (Audi RS3 LMS) to third. The standings didn’t change after the mandatory pit stops, as Scalvini took over from Tavano and ran away with the lead. BF Motorsport were in a strong second with Alessandro Berton, while the fight for third between Sinan Çiftçi and Maximilian Kochendörfer animated the final minutes of the stage. Ultimately, Scalvini/Tavano (Cupra Leon VZ) kept their perfect track record this weekend by taking the race lead after Stage-1, with a gap of 22.933s over Lisi/Berton (Audi RS3 LMS). The other Audi of Çiftçi/Dalokay managed to held third place, with Kochendörfer/Klug (Cupra TCR DSG) forced to settle for fourth. A strong showing from Kalpaklıoğlu/Göktaş (Audi RS3 Gen-1) sees them at the top of the Gen-1 standings once more.
In the TCR DSG standings, Paolo Palanti (Audi RS3 DSG) was able to overtake pole sitter Daniele Verrocchio in the other Audi, with the two Brothers In Arms Cupras following suit. The fight for the lead continued up until the pit stop window, when Cristian Carinci took over from Palanti and emerged in front of Davide Pezza, who climbed in Tuder Motorsport’s Audi after Verrocchio pitted. If on one hand the leading Casals Motorsport entry was unstoppable in the second half of Stage-1, Pezza was instead caught by Dario Caso (Cupra TCR DSG), with the latter making the move stick in the final stages. As time ran out, Palanti/Carinci (Audi RS3 DSG) took the stage win as well as the race lead; Caso/Locatelli (Cupra TCR DSG) roared to second, having the better of Pezza/Verrocchio (Audi RS3 DSG) who ultimately settled for third. The second Brothers In Arms entry, driven by championship leaders Argenti/Serratore (Cupra TCR DSG), took home fourth in class.
The attention now lies on Sunday 7 June, with Stage-2 ready to bring even more on-track action to the table at 11:40 local time. Once again, the final stage will be broadcast live on TCR TV’s official YouTube channel, with Daniele Spadi on commentary duties, and also on PitwallTV and Acelera GP’s YouTube channels.
