Kris Richard leads Honda 1-2 in Slovakiaring thriller
Rikli Motorsport’s Kris Richard won the first race at Slovakiaring after an incident-packed first heat. The Swiss came home ahead of team-mate Peter Rikli, who just pipped Lema Racing’s Fabio Mota in a very tight battle which lasted almost the entire race.
The starting procedure was delayed twice as race control were not satisfied with the alignment of the cars. Pole sitter Christjohannes Schreiber got a warning at the first attempt, while the second delay was caused by S1600 cars lining up in the wrong way.
When the race did start Kris Richard took the lead ahed of Schreiber, with Rikli jumping up to third ahead of championship leader Petr Fulin and Mota. The SEATs were able to overtake the Hondas quite soon, with Schreiber overtaking Richard for first and Fulin pulling off a clean move over Rikli to claim third.
Meanwhile Igor Stefanovski outbraked himself in the Lema Racing SEAT and cannoned into Mladen Lalusic’s sister car, which caused a drive through penalty for the Lema Racing driver.
As the battle raged on with Mota and Lalusic attacking – and passing – Peter Rikli, news arrived that both Krenek Motorsport SEATs were disqualified, with the black flag shown to both Schreiber and Fulin, just as the Czech overtook Richard for second.
With the top two out of the scene, it was rather comfortable for Richard to continue on to win the race, while team-mate Peter Rikli engaged a tense battle with Mota which only resolved on the finish line with the Swiss finishing second by a blink of an eye ahead of the Portuguese SEAT driver.
A very entertaining battle in the S1600 class saw pole sitter Ulrike Krafft battle it out with team-mate Niklas Mackschin and stable-mate Andrii Ievtushenko, with Peugeot’s Kevin Hilgenhovel also in the mix. The four cars battled it out for several laps, including a contact between Krafft and Ievtushenko which allowed the Peugeot through to the lead.
That was short-live however, as Ievtushenko outbraked himself and touched the leader, leaving both out of the race and the lead to Krafft.
The race finished with Richard comfortably winning ahead of Rikli and Mota. Norbert Nagy was fourth for Zengo Motorsport, ahead of Mladen Lalusic, whose good race was hampered by the contact with Stefanovski as well as an off which damaged his SEAT’s diffuser. Wolfgang Kriegl made it to sixth ahead of Igor Stefanovski, who was the last S2000 driver on the finish line.
Ulrike Krafft won the S1600 race and finished eighth overall, meaning she will start from pole position in the second race, with Niklas Mackschin finishing second ahead of Tomas Koreny’s Ford, with Andreas Rinke fourth as the first non-Ford driver in his Peugeot 207.
The second ETCC race will start at 11.05
