Josh Buchan dominates Inje Speedium Race 1 to maiden victory

Josh Buchan claimed his maiden FIA TCR World Tour victory in style, controlling the first race of the weekend at Inje Speedium in South Korea ahead of Esteban Guerrieri and Thed Björk.

While HMO Customer Racing driver Buchan made a flawless start, Cyan Racing’s Björk got a dreadful getaway and dropped down to seventh from third on the grid on the first lap.

GOAT Racing driver Guerrieri was on the move at the beginning of the race from sixth on the grid, making his way past all four Cyan Racing drivers and Junesung Park before the end of lap seven.

Points leader Yann Ehrlacher held second initially but seemed to struggle for pace early on and dropped down to finish fourth.

Björk meanwhile was on a recovery run after his poor start, passing Ehrlacher for third on lap eight.

The Swede then caught Honda driver Guerrieri on the last couple of laps but was unable to launch an attack.

Ma Qing Hua was involved in a long fight with Cupra driver Aurélien Comte for sixth place.

But the Cyan Racing driver dropped down to finish the race in ninth, seemingly in order to secure a reversed grid front row start for Race 2.

And the reversed grid pole position went to Mikel Azcona who had a quiet race down in tenth ahead of BRC Hyundai team-mate and reigning champion Norbert Michelisz.

Buchan crossed the finishing line first with a margin of around six seconds ahead of Guerrieri and Björk.

Ehrlacher was a full 19 seconds behind in fourth place while Santiago Urrutia came home in fifth ahead of Comte. The GOAT Racing pair of Ignacio Montenegro and Dusan Borkovich rounded off the top eight.

Ehrlacher’s points lead has shrunk slightly, with Guerrieri 37 points behind in second while Björk is 44 points behind in third.

The second race of the weekend starts at 10:55 local time/03:55 CEST.