Petr Fulín wins the first round of the 2016 ETCC in Paul Ricard

Krenek Motorsport’s Petr Fulín won the opening round of the 2016 European Touring Car Cup at Paul Ricard, passing race leader René Münnich on the third lap of the race and pulling away to take the win by 2.2 seconds.

The Czech driver took his 17th career victory in the ETCC and puts himself in the lead of the Super 2000 Cup in his SEAT León TCR, ahead of Münnich’s Honda Civic TCR with the identical Civic of Peter Rikli completing the podium.

Norbert Nagy had a poor start in the Zengo Motorsport SEAT, with Münnich holding the lead ahead of Fulín and Christjohannes Schrieber into Turn 1, but Screiber soon began to fall down the order, with Rikli moving up to third and harrying the leading duo.

Fulín put his move on Münnich on lap three and left the pack behind, with Münnich defending hard against Rikli during the next few laps before he went on to build a four-second lead over the Swiss driver.

Kris Richard in the Rikli Honda was spun on the opening lap in an incident with Igor Stefanovski, but the 21-year-old was able to recover to finish in fifth position, passing through the field from the back.

In the Super 1600 class, Nicklas Mackschin took his 11th win in his Ford Fiesta, while there was action behind with Ulrike Krafft’s Ford Fiesta and the Peugeots of Andrea Rinke and Kevin Hilgenhövel duelling out for second, but Hilgenhövel was handed a drive-through after cutting the track.

Krafft ran into further drama and fell down the order, with Ravenol Sport’s Tomas Koreny crossing the line in second with Andreas Rinke finishing third, falling back after late race contact with the Ukrainian driver Andrii Ievtushenko.

Alexandr Artemyev starts the reversed grid race two from pole position, with Christjohannes Schreiber starting second as a result of finishing seventh, with Mladen Lalusic third.