Photo: TCR Eastern Europe

Mat’o Homola takes dominant win on his TCR Eastern Europe return

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Home racer Mat’o Homola secured victory in the the first TCR Eastern Europe race at the Slovakia Ring ahead of Petr Semerád and Petr Čížek.

Homola, who was fastest in qualifying, started the first race from pole-position behind the wheel of his Hyundai Elantra with team-mate Semerád qualifying in second in his first outing with a Hyundai Elantra for Janík Motorsport.

To make it an all-Elantra top three, Levente Losonczy, also a returnee in the series, started the race in third for Aggressive Team Italia, in front of the championship leader Bartosz Groszek.

The leading three drivers did not change positions when the lights out, with Groszek having another slow start and falling to sixth, with Petr Čížek passing Žarko Knego for fourth place. On lap two, Knego suffered a technical fault, which saw him drop to tenth place.

Losonczy made a mistake into turn one and lost third position to Čížek. By lap four, Homola was leading with a 2.1 second advantage ahead of Semerád. Groszek got up to fifth and was on the back of Losonczy’s Elantra during lap five.

At the start of lap six, the championship leader’s Audi overtook the Elantra in the first corner after going side-by-side down the start-finish straight. During lap eight, the sole Hyundai i30 N driver, Václav Janík, overtook Radim Adámek in the new Audi RS3 LMS for seventh.

In the last two corners of the last lap, Sebastian Steibel passed Losonczy for fifth place. Homola crossed the finish line first, ahead of Semerád and Čížek, with Groszek in fourth.

Groszek continues to lead in the championship, with 141 points, ahead of Semerád with 136, and Čížek, who has 93 points.

The second TCR Eastern Europe race is scheduled for Sunday at 11:35 CET.