Petr Fulín does the double in France

Krenek Motorsport driver Petr Fulín started eighth from the reversed grid, but the Czech driver overtook seven cars in four laps to lead the way in the second ETCC race at Paul Ricard, finishing ahead of the Honda Civic of Peter Rikli.

There was drama at the start as René Münnich jumped the start in his Münnich Honda Civic TCR, and was quickly served with a drive-through penalty which saw him eventually finish the race 41 seconds down in ninth.

Into the first corner, Alexandr Artemyev led from the reverse grid pole, but there was trouble behind as Rikli Honda driver Kris Richard was tapped by Norbert Nagy’s Zengo SEAT, and then was hit by Christjohannes Screiber’s Krenek SEAT, with the 21-year-old Swiss sustaining race ending damage.

Schreiber was soon handed a penalty for the incident, while Fulín carved his way forwards, overtaking Nagy on lap two for second and then passing Artemyev for the lead on lap four.

Nagy was now battling Artemyev for second, but in doing so was slowing down the pair, and they were caught by Peter Rikli’s Honda. Nagy finally was able to take second from the Kazakh driver on lap 11, with Rikli following one lap later, and then taking second away from Nagy on the penultimate lap.

Behind, a race-long battle raged on between Serbia’s Mladen Lalusic and the French driver Pierre Humbert, with the Pfister Racing driver briefly getting ahead of him at the end of lap nine, before losing the spot back into Turn 1 on lap ten.

In S1600, Nicklas Mackschin claimed another win, finishing comfortably clear of Andrii Levtushenko, with Ulrike Krafft finishing third.

The next round of the ETCC takes place at the Hungaroring in three weeks time.

Race results to follow