Photo: TCR Media

Jean-Karl Vernay leads Team WRT 1-2 at Spa-Francorchamps

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Jean-Karl Vernay took his first win of the season in the second race at Spa-Francorchamps, going from seventh on the grid of the lead in five laps, leading new team-mate Rob Huff in a coordinated race from the Belgian squad.

WRT’s Maxime Potty started from pole position and made a good start, but contact between Boutsen Ginion Honda driver Tom Coronel and Craft-Bamboo’s Pepe Oriola behind saw them collect Potty, with Potty dropped to the back of the pack, and Oriola and Coronel out with damage.

This left Delahaye’s Edouard Mondron in the lead ahead of Rob Huff’s Volkswagen, while behind them the other Boutsen Ginion Honda of Benjamin Lessennes was quickly working his way forward, passing WRT’s Jean-Karl Vernay and M1RA’s Attila Tassi to move up to third by the end of the first lap.

On lap two, Huff made a move for the lead at Les Combes, while Lessennes dived down the middle and briefly moved into the lead, but ran wide on the exit and dropped to third, with Huff now leading the race.

Lessennes lined up Mondron again at Les Combes a lap later and took second position, while on lap four he tried the same move on Huff, but Huff defended his line. Lessennes then touched the rear of Huff’s Volkswagen and unsettled the car into the corner, with Huff fighting back and nudging the young Belgian wide, who now dropped to fifth.

Les Combes provided the action again a lap later as Vernay drove around the outside of Mondron for second, with Huff coming off the throttle and allowing his team-mate through into the lead, with WRT then controlling the race from then on to take the win.

Stefano Comini worked his way through from tenth to third to pick up key points in the championship in the Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS, with Mondron holding off countryman Lessennes to pick up fourth position.

Frédéric Vervisch was sixth in the second Comtoyou Audi ahead of GE-Force Alfa’s Davit Kajaia, with James Nash rescuing some points for Craft-Bamboo Racing with eighth, while a late mistake for M1RA’s Attila Tassi saw him finish ninth, with Giacomo Altoè taking tenth from Dusan Borkovic on the final lap.

Vernay now leads the drivers’ standings on 91 points , with Stefano Comini on 66 points and Attila Tassi third on 53 heading to next weekend’s race at Monza.