Florian Thoma takes maiden win at Oschersleben

Engstler Motorsport driver Florian Thoma led a lights-to-flag race at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben to score his first win in the TCR Germany series.

At the start, poleman Thoma (Volkswagen) took the lead, ahead of Pascal Eberle (SEAT) and Tim Zimmermann (Audi). At the end of lap one, Zimmermann took the inside of Eberle, with Josh Files (Honda), José Rodrigues (Honda) and Sheldon van der Linde (Audi) following suit.

Thoma kept his foot down, improving his lap times, but Zimmermann was also able to lap quickly, reducing the gap to the leader. Further back, Kris Richard (Honda) took advantage of the fights and bumps ahead of him to recover from tenth to eighth, reaching Sandro Kaibach (Audi). Richard, however, lost to Max Hofer at the beginning of the fifth lap.

On lap 5 Niels Langeveld spun his Audi at the end of the main straight, being stuck in the gravel trap, with the safety car being called into action. On a separate incident, Rudolf Rhyn (SEAT) had to retire after colliding with Kristian Poulsen (Volkswagen) at Zeppelin Kurve.

The race was relaunched after three laps under the safety car, with Thoma maintaining the lead ahead of Zimmerman, now under pressure from Josh Files. A a mistake from the Briton on lap 11 caused him to lose ground to his team-mate and fall within Jose Rodrigues’ grasp.

Kris Richard was able to make a comeback, overtaking Max Hofer and Sandro Kaibach, and quickly reducing the distance to Pascal Eberle.

The safety car was called into action again on lap 14 after the engine in Moritz Oestreich’s Honda Civic caught fire, with the driver desperately looking for a fire extinguisher. The German and the marshals managed to put the fire out quickly. The race was restarted after just two laps and with less than two minutes on the clock.

Florian Thoma maintained the lead, with Josh Files increasing the pressure on Tim Zimmermann for the second place. Jose Rodrigues also wanted to fight for the podium, clinging to the Briton’s rear bumper.

At the chequered flag, Florian Thoma took his first victory in the TCR Germany series, followed by Target Competition’s Tim Zimmermann and Josh Files.

Jose Rodrigues slid at the exit of Amman Kurve and again at Bauer, coming under pressure from Sheldon van der Linde. The Portuguese, however, was able to prevail against the South African, taking fourth position by just 0.033 seconds.

Sixth was Pascal Eberle, who managed to hold off Kris Richard. Antti Buri (SEAT) climbed up to eighth position, ahead of Sandro Kaibach and Harald Proczyk (SEAT).

Luca Engstler (VW) climbed from 24th on the grid to 16th at the chequered flag to take his second weekend victory in the Rookie Class.

The next round of the TCR Germany series takes place at the Red Bull Ring on 10-11th of June.