Mike Halder takes lights-to-flag Nürburgring win
Team Honda ADAC Sachsen’s Mike Halder won the first race of the weekend at the Nürburgring from pole position. The 22-year-old kept his lead at the start and never looked back. Team-mate Dominik Fugel came home second ahead of Racing One’s Niels Langeveld.
At the start and for the first seven laps, Halder was challenged by Lukas Niedertscheider in his Peugeot 308TCR, but the Austrian was deemed to have jumped the start by the stewards and was given a drive through penalty which left the race leader unchallenged for the rest of the race as he controlled a four-second gap from Fugel.
The most entertaining fight was for seventh, a good scrap between Hyundai Team Engstler’s Theo Coicaud and Luca Engstler, joined by Simon Reicher and Antti Buri in their Audi RS 3 LMS cars. Midway through the race Coicaud managed to open a gap from the other three, who continued fighting to the flag, with Buri coming eighth ahead of Engstler and Reicher.
Max Hesse came fourth in his PROsport Performance Audi, ahead of Michelle Halder’s Cupra and Benjamin Leuchter’s Volkswagen.
Former championship leader Harald Proczyk, who started from the back of the grid in his Opel Astra TCR after an engine change, is now second in the standings after finishing 14th, four points behind new leader Langeveld. The Opel driver is also under investigation for a potential jump start.
The second and final race of the weekend will start tomorrow at 14:45 CEST.
