Photo: Target Competition

Josh Files takes second win of the season in incident-packed race

By

Josh Files dominated the first race of the TCR Germany weekend held at the Red Bull Ring this afternoon, a race that had two safety car deployments.

At the start, both Target Honda’s Kris Richard and the Honda ADAC Team driver Steve Kirsch overtook pole-sitter Dino Calcum’s Opel, who was slow getting off the line. Reigning champion Files then moved ahead of his rival Honda drivers to take the lead on lap one, with Richard and Mike Halder’s SEAT in third.

Nico Kankkunen (Audi) spun off the track at the Rindt corner before the end of lap one, with Target’s Simon Larsson (Audi) also going wide at the Castrol Edge corner on lap 3.

Luca Engstler (VW) went off track after contact fom Antti Buri (Audi), with the young German stuck in the gravel trap and the safety car being called into action for two laps.
The race was restarted on lap seven, with Files maintaining the lead ahead of Richard, Halder and Kirsch, with the Honda driver attacking the SEAT for third as the leaders opened a gap.

The safety car was again called out when Sven Markert (Audi) hit the barriers at the Red Bull Mobile corner, after being pushed out by Pascal Eberle. A separate incident saw Jason Wolfe also stopped on track after being pushed out by Gosia Rdest (Audi), with the safety car taking the field through the pitlane as the marshals were recovering Market’s RS 3 LMS.

Track was green again on lap 12 and with only six minutes on the clock, with Files opening a gap on the restart. Calcum had overtaken Kirsch for fourth position, with both him and Halder attacking Richard for second place at the Remus corner. The SEAT driver managed to get through, with the Opel driver stuck behind. Richard went wide at the Schlossgold corner, falling back to 27th place.

The final minutes of the race saw a very close battle for second place between Halder, Calcum and Kirsch. The Opel driver managed to get ahead at the Remus corner on the penultimate lap, with Halder recovering the position at the next turn and Calcum falling into Kirsch’s hands for the final lap of the race. The Honda attacked at the Remus corner again, not succeeding in taking the position.

At the chequered flag, Files took his second victory of the year, followed by Halder and Calcum on the podium.

Kirsch was fourth, with Buri closing the gap in the final stages of the race. Sheldon van der Linde (Audi) was sixth, followed by Sandro Kaibach (Audi) and Jürgen Schmarl (Honda). Alex Morgan (SEAT) was ninth, with Harald Proczyk (SEAT) in tenth.

Simon Reicher (Audi), who was 14th overall, won the Rookie class.

Action for the TCR Germany series resumes tomorrow afternoon, with Race 2 scheduled for 15:40 CET.