Photo: Jacques Letihon Photographe

Stefano Comini doubles-up at Spa-Francorchamps

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Stefano Comini took his second race victory in just an hour at Spa-Francorchamps, leading from pole position in the Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 to win the second sprint race at Spa ahead of former team-mate Jean-Karl Vernay, and takes the lead of the drivers’ standings.

The Swiss, who is a one-off entry this weekend along with co-driver Sheldon van der Linde, who will race the car later today, led the way from the start, while Vernay made up a spot from third to second in the Team WRT Volkswagen Golf, ahead of Benjamin Lessennes’ Boutsen Ginion Racing Honda Civic TCR.

There was trouble at the start, with the Bas Koeten Racing Audi RS 3 of Stan van Oord and the Team WRT SEAT of Sam Dejonghe returning to the pits with damage, while DG Peugeot’s Kevin Abbring failed to start the race following a collision with Stephane Lemeret in Race 1, decimating the TCR class of the field.

From then on, the race was fairly processional with the cars running on fading tyres, with Comini holding off Vernay by just under a second to win the race with Lessennes completing the podium.

Fred Caprasse finished fourth for Opel, with Guillaume Mondron again finishing fifth in the Delahaye Racing SEAT León TCR.

Delahaye’s Matthieu Detry was sixth ahead of team-mate Giacomo Altoe, with Bas Koeten Racing’s Paul Sieljes the only other classified finisher in the TCR class.

Comini and van der Linde now lead the TCR Benelux drivers’ standings on 62 points, with Lessennes and Enzo Guibbert on 48, three ahead of the Mondron brothers on 45.

The third sprint race of the weekend gets underway at 16:50 CET, with DG Opel driver Mat’o Homola starting on pole.