Photo: TCR Denmark

Mike Halder beats Kasper Jensen to first Copenhagen victory

Mike Halder defended his pole position successfully to win the first TCR Denmark race of the weekend on the streets of Copenhagen despite hard pressure from points leader Kasper Jensen.

TPR Motorsport driver Halder made a good start from pole and Jensen an even better one to get up from fifth on the grid to second on the first lap.

The safety car was called into action early in the race as Kristian Sætheren stopped on track with a technical issue that saw flames coming out of his Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR in spectacular fashion.

The Norwegian driver escaped the incident unharmed.

There were no major changes to the order as the safety car headed back in.

Cupra driver Michael Markussen ran fourth at this stage of the race, but a technical issue saw him retiring from the race on lap seven.

GMB Motorsport driver Jensen started piling the pressure on Halder for the lead with five minutes left of the race.

Jensen got up alongside Halder at the braking for Turn 1, but Halder managed to defend from his Honda rival who instead was passed by Cupra driver Nicolai Sylvest.

But Jensen did not give up and managed to fight his way back up into second place on the last lap, demoting Sylvest to third.

Halder won the race by just two tenths of a second ahead of Jensen, with Sylvest completing the podium.

Jensen’s GMB Motorsport team-mate Gustav Birch finished fourth ahead of Alfa Romeo driver Jacob Mathiassen, while Philip Lindberg rounded off the top six.

The second race of the weekend starts at 11:05 CEST on Sunday.