Aurélien Panis scores his first win in Thailand Race 2
22-year-old Aurélien Panis took his first win in the TCR International Series in only his second race meeting in the championship, leading from start-to-finish and securing both his and the Belgian Boutsen Ginion Racing team’s first victory.
The second race was less hectic than the first, with Panis comfortably getting away from pole, while M1RA Honda driver Giacomo Altoè launched off the line from fourth and into second, passing both the Volkswagen of Kantadhee Kusiri and the Audi RS 3 LMS of Comtoyou Racing’s Stefano Comini.
Kusiri dropped back behind the other two M1RA Hondas of Attila Tassi and Norbert Michelisz, and was now defending against James Nash’s Craft-Bamboo SEAT León, the best-placed on the grid for the team after Pepe Oriola was unable to make the start due to a gearbox problem.
Championship contender Jean-Karl Vernay dived past Nash’s SEAT León on lap two and up to seventh, and then closed in on Kusiri’s WestCoast Racing Volkswagen.
At the end of lap two, Dusan Borkovic in the Alfa Romeo made a lunge at Mat’o Homola’s Opel at Turn 12, but ran wide and allowed the Team WRT Volkswagen of Rob Huff past both of them.
On lap four, Vernay made his move on Kusiri to take sixth, while Nash tried to follow him past, but his the rear of Kusiri’s Golf GTI, forcing him wide and down to 11th, in an incident which was investigated after the race, but quickly decided that no action would be taken.
A lap later, and Borkovic was able to pass Huff, and then the Alfa Romeo driver caught and passed James Nash on lap eight for seventh position, which was as far as the Serbian’s charge would go on this occasion.
The key battle now was for fifth, as Michelisz was defending against his team-mate’s title rival Vernay lap after lap, but the fight came to an end on the final lap as Michelisz slowed with an apparent turbo issue, promoting Vernay to fifth position, but the Frenchman had no time to close down the two second gap to title rival Tassi.
Panis went on to win the race unchallenged, 1.3 seconds clear of Giacomo Altoè, who took his best result of the season on his debut with the M1RA team, with Stefano Comini the highest placed of the main championship contenders in third.
Tassi now heads to the next round of the championship at the Zhejiang circuit in China on 179 points, two points clear of Jean-Karl Vernay, with Comini a further 12 behind.
