Max Hart claims maiden TCR Europe victory in Hockenheim opener

Target Competition’s Max Hart claimed his first-ever TCR Europe victory in the opening race of the weekend at Hockenheim.

The Hyundai Elantra N TCR driver optimised a safety car restart to seize the advantage from early leader Nicola Baldan and was largely unchallenged thereafter.

Polesitter Marco Butti recovered from a poor start to finish second, with Baldan losing out to Team Clairet Sport Audi’s Jimmy Clairet in the closing laps.

“It feels good, it was pretty interesting in the first laps, and then after that it was all about being as consistent as possible and put in the qualy laps,” Hart said post-race.

“The team have given me an absolutely superb car; we went a little bit risky with our setup but it paid off. The pace was there the whole race and I am so happy with this result.”

Butti bogged off the line from pole position, which allowed Baldan to sweep into the lead at the first corner.

Things went from bad to worse for Butti around the opening lap, as the Italian dropped a further two places after out-braking himself at the hairpin.

That elevated Max Hart and Eric Gené to the podium places as the safety car was deployed at the end of lap one due to an incident involving Jean-Laurent Navarro, Victor Fernández, Pierre-Arnaud Navarro and Filippo Barberi.

Baldan led away at the restart with 15 minutes remaining but immediately came under attack from Hart. The Irishman then brilliantly seized the lead with a late dive to the inside of turn two, with Gené following through on exit to grab second.

Having bounced back from a slow start, Butti was the next to get ahead of Baldan, taking third place to cap off a miserable first post-safety car lap for the latter.

Butti then worked his way past Gené under braking for the hairpin to gain second, and take up the chase of Hart, who established a slender 0.8s lead at the head of the field.

Entering the closing stages, Butti’s Honda Civic Type-R proved to be the quicker car and he was soon onto the rear bumper of Hart for the lead.

The gap ebbed and flowed with Hart responding to Butti’s assault well, increasing his margin to over a second as Baldan began to give Butti some concern in third.

That allowed Hart to stretch his legs to the tune of nearly three seconds heading into the final laps, and the Target Competition driver duly claimed his maiden TCR Europe victory by a little over three seconds from Butti.

Having qualified a lowly 14th in the morning, Teddy Clairet had made good progress through the field in the race, getting past Felice Jelmini with nine minutes left to claim ninth as his brother Jimmy edged towards the podium with an assertive overtake on Gené for fourth.

Fourth place then became third as Baldan’s attempted pass on Butti left the former off-line at turn seven and, despite slight contact, Clairet managed to snatch the final step on the podium.

Teddy Clairet’s race was soon over after a clumsy incident with Nicolas Taylor at the hairpin with just a few minutes remaining. The pair had been fighting over eighth place but Clairet missed his braking point and was out on the spot with front-end damage.

Junesong Park also retired late on after a high-speed off in the stadium section.

ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt finished just outside of the top five in sixth place, ahead of PMA Motorsport Audi duo Felice Jelmini and Taylor.

Race two polesitter Felipe Fernández was ninth, with Julien Briché completing the top 10.

The second TCR Europe race of the Hockenheim weekend will take place tomorrow at 11:40 CEST.