Nicolai Sylvest romps to TCR Denmark heat two win in Copenhagen
Green Development’s Nicolai Sylvest claimed a straightforward TCR Denmark victory in the second heat of the Copenhagen Historic Grand Prix weekend.
The Cupra León Competición driver started third but made swift progress in the opening laps, profiting from a mistake from polesitter Kevin Brandsborg to take the lead on the second of 15 laps.
From there, it was a case of building a lead over the chasing Michael Markussen, which he duly did to the tune of over 10s at the finish.
While less chaotic than Saturday’s opening heat, there was still drama at the beginning of the race as points leader Jan Magnussen was taken out after heat one winner Kasper Jensen trigger a multi-car incident at turn two.
Jensen tagged the back of Gustav Birch, who survived minimal contact with the barriers, while the Audis of Mike Halder and Kevin Engman also had nowhere else to go.
Magnussen suffered the most of all, as he was out at the end of the lap with broken front suspension.
Markussen had seized the lead at the second corner after initially getting the jump on Birch off the line. Brandsborg fell to second and chased Markussen for the lead before a botched move at the bus stop chicane left the Honda in the barrier, with retirement following soon after.
The contretemps at the chicane also delayed Markussen, gifting Sylvest a lead he never lost.
The Cupra driver pulled away at a rate of half a second per lap and came home comfortably in front by the flag as Markussen beat Birch by seven seconds.
Off the podium, Silas Rytter was fourth in his Hyundai i30 N TCR, ahead of Lars Højris Nielsen and the recovering Halder.
Marius Solberg Hansen and Anton Bergström were up next after an entertaining battle for seventh and eighth, while Christian Skaar and René Junker Povlsen rounded out the top 10.
The final heat of the weekend in Copenhagen is scheduled to take place later today at 15:00 CEST.
