Luca Engstler powers through to victory in Shanghai Race 2
Engstler Motorsport driver Luca Engstler took his fifth win from six races in the TCR Asia series in the second race at the Shanghai International Circuit ahead of the rival Hyundai of Pepe Oriola, while Dan Lloyd finished third overall and racked up another win in TCR China.
Oriola started from second on the grid in the Solite Indigo Racing Hyundai i30 N TCR and launched straight into the lead ahead of the NewFaster Racing Cupra TCR of Alex Liu, with Daniel Miranda up to second in the Eurasia Hyundai, and Engstler straight up to third from sixth on the grid.
It didn’t take long for both Engstler, and the Dongfeng Honda MacPro car of Dan Lloyd to pass Miranda’s car, making their way past at the end of lap one.
Miranda was slowing falling back from the leading trio, with Diego Moran in the second Engstler Hyundai mounting his attack at the end of lap five, in a move which carried on all the way to the first corner of the next lap to get by and up to fourth.
Meanwhile, Oriola was holding station up front until Engstler dived past on lap seven to take his customary position up front, and then pulled away to win the race by 1.4 seconds, while Oriola was left to keep behind TCR China championship leader Dan Lloyd until the finish.
Moran finished fourth ahead of Miranda, with Huang Chu Han sixth overall in the NewFaster Racing Aud RS 3 LMS, with Teamwork Motorsport’s Alex Hui seventh ahead of Kelvin Wong’s Cupra.
Adam Khalid in the Team Oettinger Volkswagen, and Kim Jin Soo in the second of the Solite Indigo Hyundais completed the top ten.
Engstler now leads the TCR Asia standings by 27 points over team-mate Moran.
The next round of the TCR Asia series is scheduled to take place at the Zhejiang circuit on July 6-7.
