Dominik Fugel completes Sachsenring cleansweep in Race 2

Team Fugel driver Dominik Fugel made further inroads into Luca Engstler’s TCR Germany points lead with his second consecutive win at the Sachsenring.

Fugel, who dominated Saturday’s qualifying and race, again started from pole position and survived a time penalty for a jump start to claim victory from Engstler by 17.2s.

Engstler still holds a 68-point advantage over Fugel in the standings, but Fugel’s dominant double showed that there is still life in the title race.

Off the start, Fugel got a superb getaway to lead comfortably into the first corner, much like he managed in Race 1, while Engstler leapt up to second ahead of team-mate Nico Gruber.

Engstler, indeed, had initially got off the line worse than Marcel Fugel and the pair went side-by-side on the run towards Turn 1.

The Hyundai driver then elected to hang it around the outside which not only helped Engstler fend off Fugel but also get past Gruber for second on the exit of the corner.

It was a significant move as Dominik Fugel was soon handed a five-second time penalty – added to the final race time – for fractionally jumping the start.

Fugel was keen to make as much ground as he could to build a sufficient gap to Engstler, particularly as the race was neutralised by a safety car following two separate incidents on the opening lap.

The first came as Patrick Sing made contact with the Team Öttinger Volkswagen of René Kircher at the penultimate corner, which left Kircher in the gravel trap, while Günter Benninger also spun off into the gravel on his own.

Sing’s race ended on the first lap, while Kircher recovered to join the back of the back, eventually finishing 10th.

Fugel managed to gap Engstler from the safety car restart as he had done at the start of the race, pulling a margin of 4.504s over the Hyundai i30 N TCR with still a quarter of an hour left to run.

Any hopes Engstler had of bridging the gap to the front of the field were quickly dashed as Fugel extended his lead out front to over the necessary five seconds after half-distance.

It grew even further, to over eight seconds as the might of the Honda Civic Type-R was displayed with devastating effect.

Engstler for his part, was untroubled by Gruber behind him and the pair of Team Engstler Hyundais finished nearly three seconds apart by the flag.

Martin Andersen finished a close fourth after closing onto the back of Gruber in the closing laps, while ROJA Motorsport’s Robin Jahr claimed a well deserved fifth place in his Hyundai i30 N TCR.

He finished ahead of Eric Scalvini, who salvaged sixth after a hugely frustrating weekend for the Wimmer Werk Motorsport Cupra León Competición driver.

Marcel Fugel was once again struck by mechanical misfortune and lost a likely fourth place after having to pull into the pits with two minutes remaining.

Behind, the action was a little more sedate, with Jonas Karklys finishing seventh, ahead of Philipp Regensperger, Kircher and Christopher Röhner.

The next TCR Germany round will take place at Hockenheim on the weekend of 22-24 October.