Photo: TCR Germany

Harald Proczyk scores second win of the year at the Red Bull Ring

By

Harald Proczyk has moved into the lead of the TCR Germany championship after securing his second victory of the season at the Red Bull Ring.

Starting sixth on the grid, Austrian Proczyk ran third early in the race in his Opel Astra TCR before assuming the lead after early leader Benjamin Leutchter in his Max Kruze Racing Volkswagen was penalised for contact with reversed grid pole-sitter Sandro Kaibach’s Audi.

Proczyk built a healthy 3.2 second lead which he kept to the flag, beating LMS Racing’s Antti Buri, with Leuchter third.

Race 1 winner Niels Langeveld started the reversed grid race from tenth, but did not make the predicted progress and only managed eighth in his Audi RS 3 LMS.

Kaibach lost the lead to the fast-starting Luca Engstler’s Volkskwagen Golf GTI TCR off the line as he bogged down slightly as the lights went out, but retook it as Engstler ran wide at Remus on the opening lap.

Leuchter found a way past Engstler exiting the corner and then forcefully got past Kaibach at Schlossgold before the safety car was brought out following contact between Sebastian Steibel, JC Reynolds and Jussi Kuusiniemi.

At the restart, the Audi RS 3 LMS driver was instructed to hand the position back to Kaibach, but ultimately dropped to third as Proczyk slipped by Kaibach for second.

Kaibach faded away over the remainder of the race, with Leuchter breezing past for second.

Proczyk kept his lead over one second for the duration and made sure his HP Racing International Opel Astra TCR was never challenged.

Buri made a superb late lunge up the inside of Leuchter at Remus on the final lap to grab his second successive runner-up spot.

For Langeveld, it was a case of damage limitation. The Dutchman had slumped as low as 12th but made a series of well-executed overtakes to salvage some valuable points in eighth.

Behind Engstler in fifth was his Team Engstler team-mate Florian Thoma, with Proczyk’s team-mate Luke Wankmuller sixth in the second Opel Astra TCR.

Pole-man Kaibach brought his PROsport Performance Audi home in ninth place ahead of Lukas Niederdtscheider’s Peugeot 308TCR in tenth.

The next round of the TCR Germany Touring Car Championship takes place at the Nurburgring on August 5th.