Tomas Engström takes victory in race 1

Tomas Engström has won the first race of the European Touring Car Cup at the circuit of Adria in Italy. The Swede took victory after starting from pole position and not giving away his lead during the 19 laps of racing. Engström in his Honda Accord was only threatened in the first few laps of the race, when Maurizio Ceresoli tried to overtake the Swede.

The first race at Adria was an incident packed, but not in a positive way. On a overcrowded track, most overtaking that took place was lapping the S1600 cars or overtaking by pushing the component of the track. Jens Reno Moller, starting from second on the grid, was pushed into a spin by Pontus Morth at the beginning of the race. He managed to keep his car in the right direction, but lost many places. When the flag dropped, Morth was the eight car crossing the line.

Just a few laps later Henrik Lungaard finished the race of both him and Cesar Campanico, after the Dane tried to force Campanico’s BMW onto the grass, but the Italian didn’t gave way. Campanico was punted of into the gravel trap on the left of the track, whereas Lungaard sweered off to the right with a broken left rear-wheel suspension.

In lap 13 Pontus Morth made one of the few correct overtaking manouvres of the race, taking second place from Maurizio Ceresoli. Michel Nykjaer tried to take advantage of the situation and take third, and got alongside Ceresoli. However, Nykjaer made a unnecessary manouvre and forced Ceresoli to avoid onto the grass. As the Italian got back onto the track, he was unable to stop his car in time for the next corner. As Ceresoli ended up in the gravel trap, Morth had to take evasive actions, giving Nykjaer the chance to take over second position.

Morth tried to take back second position towards the end, but he didn’t want to take to much risk and had to settle for third in the end. Emmett O’Brien came home in fourth, followed by Russians Alexander Lvov. Phillip Geipel and Kristian Poulsen finished the race in sixth and seventh respectively, after having a nice battle together during the race. Moller took the last point in eight with his Chevrolet Nubira.

Aleksey Basov, driving a Honda Civic Type R, took victory in the Super Production class, after crossing the line in 18th. Arkadiy Pavlovskiy (Opel Astra Coupe) and Anton Markin (BMW 320i) took second and third. In the S1600 class victory went to Jens-Guido Weimann (Ford Fiesta), followed by Jens Lohnig (Citroen C2) and Maxim Tsimbalov (Volkswagen Polo).