Photo: ETCC Media

Manuel Pedro Fernandes takes victory on his ETCC debut in Vila Real

By

Manuel Pedro Fernandes took victory on his European Touring Car Cup debut at Vila Real, with the Speedy SEAT driver capitalising on a late race puncture for Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Nagy, whom he’d pressured throughout for the lead.

The first attempt at a rolling start was waved off as the field were heading too fast towards the red lights, while at the second start there were no incidents, with Norbert Nagy leading the way into Turn 1 ahead of Fernandes’ SEAT and Petr Fulín in the Krenek Motorsport SEAT, with the other local driver Fabio Mota fourth in the Lema Racing SEAT.

Championship contender Kris Richard was handed a drive-through penalty for having reversed in the pit lane before the cars headed out to the grid, which dropped the Rikli Honda driver to the back of the Super 2000 Trophy class pack.

Fernandes harried Nagy throughout the first half of the race, which was broken up by a safety car when Fabio Mota hit the wall at Turn 23 as he tried to dive down the inside of Fulín’s SEAT, but misjudged the corner.

When the race resumed, Christjohannes Schreiber then slowed out of the fourth place he’d inherited due to a technical problem, promoting the Honda of Peter Rikli to fourth.

Nagy continued to hold off Fernandes, with the two building up a lead over Fulín in third, but Nagy slid wide at Turn 23 relinquishing the position to Fernandes, which soon became clear this was due to a puncture, with the 22-year-old Hungarian diving into the pits to retire.

Fernandes therefore went on to take a comfortable victory ahead of the two championship contenders Fulín and Rikli, with Lein Racing’s Mladen Lalusic and the Honda of Kris Richard the only five TCN2 class cars to finish the race.

Niklas Mackschin racked up another win in the Super 1600 class in his Ravenol Team Ford Fiesta, finishing clear of Kevin Hilgenhovel’s Peugeot and the Ford Fiesta of Tomas Koreny.

Koreny will start Race 2 from pole with the reversed grid, with three S1600 cars lining up ahead of the faster TCN2 class cars for the standing start.