Sam Dejonghe and Denis Dupont lead Team WRT 1-2 in Zolder qualifying race
Sam Dejonghe and Denis Dupont claimed Team WRT’s first win of the 2017 TCR Benelux Touring Car Championship, leading team-mates Maxime Potty and Mathieu Detry to the finish, while championship contender Guillaume Mondron picked up vital points with third.
Dejonghe started from pole position, but lost out to the Bas Koeten Audi RS 3 of Meindert van Buuren at the start, with the Dutchman fast in the opening stages, pulling out a lead as Dejonghe fought to keep behind the Peugeot 308 of Aurélien Comte.
The first lap was a disaster for championship leader Benjamin Lessennes in the Boutsen Ginion Honda, who’d made a good start and was battling for the lead with van Buuren’s Audi, but the two made contact at Turn 8, with Lessennes pitting with damage, but was able to rejoin at the back of the pack.
Maxime Potty was able to pass Comte’s Peugeot for third on lap three, and was clearly faster at this stage than Dejonghe.
On lap six, Dejonghe allowed his WRT team-mate past in a co-ordinated move up towards the Kliene chicane for second, while a less co-ordinated move took place behind with the Bas Koeten Audi of Mika Morien making contact with the DG Peugeot of Aurélien Comte at the same corner, with Comte pitting to retire at the end of the lap.
Lessennes also returned to the pits, with the championship leader set to lose ground in the standings, with the Boutsen Ginion team switching focus to make sure the car could finish and be classified for points. Lessennes was able to get back out on track but was circling over three seconds off the pace.
Potty meanwhile closed down on van Buuren’s Audi, and a terrific fight ensued for the lead, but the 17-year-old was unable to find a way past the Dutchman’s RS 3.
As they battled, this allowed the SEAT of Sam Dejonghe to catch back up to the pair. Potty pitted at the earliest opportunity when the pit window opened on lap 14 and handed over to Mathieu Detry, while Dejonghe was able to pass van Buuren for the lead on track on lap 16, before the Audi driver headed into the pits for his mandatory driver change.
When the pit stop sequence was complete, it was the SEAT, now with Denis Dupont onboard, in the lead ahead of team-mate Detry’s Volkwagen, with the two pulling away from the Bas Koeten Audi, now with Willem Meijer at the wheel.
From then on, the race settled down, with Dupont slowing pulling away from his team-mate to take the win by 4.5 seconds, the first win for Team WRT of the season.
With Detry and Potty second, it was by far the team’s best race of the season, while Guillaume Mondron in the Delahaye Volkswagen overtook the Audi of Willem Meijer with three laps to go to grab the final podium position,
Meijer finished fourth, with Jonas de Kimpe fifth, running on his own for the full hour in the DK Racing Volkswagen Golf, gaining a position on Stan van Oord’s Audi, who pitted on the penultimate lap, but continued on to finish sixth.
Stépháne Lémeret finished seventh and scored six vital points for Benjamin Lessennes in the championship, but the young Belgian’s lead is now just 12 points after Mondron’s third place finish in the race.
Maxime Potty and Mathieu Detry move ahead of the non-scoring Peugeot of Aurélien Comte and Kevin Abbring to fourth in the championship standings, 74 points off the championship lead.
The fastest laps of the race are used to determine the starting grids of each of the first pair of sprint races tomorrow, the first of which gets underway at 10:10 CET.
