Fernando Monje wins race two to lead the ETCC

Fernando Monje has won the second race of the FIA European Touring Car Cup at Monza, leading Stian Paulsen and Andreas Pfister for the second time and leads the Cup standings.

Petr Fulín wouldn’t make the start of race two after being excluded from the event for ignoring the black flag in the first race.

Monje started from eighth on the reverse grid, whilst Christian Fischer started on the front row in his Rikli Honda Accord alongside Aytac Biter’s Borosan Otomotiv BMW.

The BMW bogged down at the start and Fischer, in his repaired Honda Accord after heavy damage in race one in incidents with Biter and Skuz, had too much wheelspin which saw Urs Sonderegger take the lead in the SEAT León Supercopa. Fischer took back the position on the same lap, with Stian Paulsen moving into second.

By the end of the first lap Monje was in third position, and passed Fischer into Turn 1 to take the lead, with Fischer tapped into a slide by Paulsen. Paulsen passed Fischer on lap 3, who would later pull into the pits and retire from the race.

Aytac Biter and Igor Skuz made contact at the Parabolica, with Skuz racing in his repaired Engstler BMW 320si. Skuz was able to rejoin, whilst Biter was out of the race.

On lap seven, Sonderegger was hit by Ferenc Ficza’s Alfa Romeo into Turn 1, with Ficza taking heavy damage. Sonderegger managed to continue and finished fifth, whilst Ficza was unable to continue. The incident will be investigated by the stewards.

Monje crossed the line to win the race by 9.8 seconds from Paulsen, repeating the result from race two with Andreas Pfister third.

Nikolay Karamyshev won the Super Production class with his privately entered Honda Civic Type-R, with rival SP class runner Aleksander Tosic having retired from the race.

Kevin Krammes won the S1600 class again, this time ahead of Gilles Bruckner.

The next round of the ETCC is at the Slovakiaring in the Slovak Republic on 29th April.