Yann Ehrlacher fights to Cyan Racing 1-2-3 as Esteban Guerrieri stalls
Yann Ehrlacher fought his way to win the first FIA TCR World Tour of 2025 in Mexico, heading a Lynk & Co Cyan Racing 1-2-3 while pole sitter Esteban Guerrieri stalled at the start.
Several drivers made poor starts as the lights went out, seemingly struggling with the grip level of the circuit.
Santiago Urrutia made a strong start from fifth on the grid to grab the lead ahead of Ehrlacher heading into the first corner.
But the best start of all was made by TCR Mexico front-runner and former Champ Car driver Michael Jourdain Jr. who got up to third place from eleventh place on the grid.
Disaster struck GOAT Racing Honda driver Ignacio Montenegro on the opening lap as his left-rear wheel came off, sending him spinning off into the barriers and retirement from the race.
A tough fight soon broke out for the lead between Cyan Racing team-mates Ehrlacher and Urrutia, with the duo swapping places several times.
Ehrlacher had the pace on his Uruguayan team-mate but had to hand the place back two times for overtaking outside of the track limits.
The safety car headed out on track on lap eight as one of the tyre stacks had been hit and dragged out onto the track.
The field was released a lap later and the fight for the lead immediately resumed. Ehrlacher finally made the move stick on lap 12, passing Urrutia with a late dive into Turn 1.
The move enabled last year’s runner-up Thed Björk to get past Urrutia as well into second place.
Guerrieri fought hard to climb back up the field after his poor getaway and was up to fifth place as the safety car headed out, having been as low as 14th after his stall.
Guerrieri then passed SP Competition driver Aurelien Comte for fourth place on lap 16.
Comte came under fire from Ma Qing Hua during the final couple of laps, with Ma making a very late move on the penultimate lap. But Comte was able to fight back a corner later to secure fifth place.
Ehrlacher pulled away at the top to win the race by 3.6 seconds ahead of Björk and 5.5 seconds ahead of Urrutia.
Julio Rejón was the top TCR Mexico driver in seventh place ahead of Jourdain who dropped to eighth place after his strong start.
Rodrigo Rejón came home in ninth place while BRC Hyundai driver Mikel Azcona recovered from 14th on the grid to finish tenth and secure the reversed grid pole position for Race 2.
Norbert Michelisz’s nightmare start to the season continued as the reigning champion came to a halt with what seemed to be a technical issue on the last lap, dropping down to finish 18th.
Ehrlacher heads the standings on 40 points after the first race, five points ahead of Guerrieri and seven points ahead of Björk.
The second race of the weekend in Mexico starts at 11:30 local time/19:30 CEST on Saturday.
