Photo: TCR World Tour

Mikel Azcona controls safety car interrupted second Inje Speedium race

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Mikel Azcona controlled the second FIA TCR World Tour race of the weekend at Inje Speedium from the reversed grid pole position to his first win of 2025.

The BRC Hyundai driver made a strong start ahead of Dusan Borkovic who was able to get the jump on Ma Qing Hua from third place on the grid.

Cyan Racing’s Thed Björk was on the move early on from eighth place on the grid, making his way past GOAT Racing drivers Ignacio Montenegro and Esteban Guerrieri for fourth place at the start of lap five.

The safety car was the called into action at the end of lap five as Juni Park had parked his Solite Indigo Racing-prepared Hyundai at the side of the track due to an incident.

A painfully slow recovery process saw the field resuming racing again on lap ten, with Azcona heading the field while Björk made his way past team-mate Ma for third place.

Ma was shuffled down the order as Honda driver Guerrieri tried to follow past Björk with spectacular contact between the two.

This enabled points leader Yann Ehrlacher to get past them both for fourth place.

Borkovic then made a mistake on lap eleven which enabled Björk to get past for second place, as Ehrlacher then got on the inside of the Honda driver.

Borkovich tried to close the door on Ehrlacher who had the overlap, resulting in contact and a half-spin for Borkovich who dropped behind Ehrlacher as well as his team-mate Guerrieri a corner later.

Björk started to reel in Azcona in the fight for the lead during the last couple of laps, with the gap dropping down to 1.4 seconds at the start of the final lap.

But Björk slowed down on the last lap to let Ehrlacher past into second place.

Azcona won the race ahead of Ehrlacher and Björk while the GOAT Racing duo of Guerrieri and Borkovich had to settle for fourth and fifth.

Santiago Urrutia came home in sixth ahead of Cyan Racing team-mate Ma, while reigning champion Norbert Michelisz had yet another quiet race to finish eighth.

Ehrlacher has extended his championship lead over Guerrieri to 42 points while Björk is a further five points behind in third.

The third and final race of the weekend starts at 16:40 local time/09:40 CEST.