Photo: TCR Spain

Erik Zabala wins close Race 2 at Paul Ricard

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Erik Zabala (Audi) claimed a hard-fought victory in the second TCR Spain race of the weekend at Paul Ricard in France.

Mathieu Casalonga (Audi) took the lead at the start from the reversed grid pole position, followed by Busian Fontan (Audi) and Victor Fernández (Honda).

Zabala and Sten-Dorian Piirimagi (Honda) were on the move early on, with Zabala climbing to the lead during lap one and the Estonian driver overtaking his way through the pack to second place at the end of first lap.

Felipe Fernández and Tom Pussier had an incident during the first lap which came under investigation by the stewards, with the Frenchman also receiving several penalties for track limits infringements.

Race 1 winner Matéo Herrero (Cupra) overtook Casalonga for third place on lap two, with Casalonga receiving a drive-through penalty soon after for a jumped start.

Herrero continued moving forward and caught Piirimagi on lap three, with the duo having several side-by-side moments.

Monlau Motorsport driver Viktor Andersson (Cupra) overtook Casalonga for fourth place on lap three.

Demir Eröge (Honda) spun at Turn 11 on lap four, but was able to continue. Felipe Fernández received a five-second time penalty for jumping the start.

Piirimagi went wide on lap seven, losing second place to Herrero, but regained the position at Turn 1 on the following lap. The fight between them allowed Anderson to join the group.

Andersson overtook Herrero for third place on lap eight, with the Frenchman also losing a further position to Felipe Fernández.

The penultimate lap saw a three-way wide fight for the lead, with Felipe Fernández overtaking Andersson for third place on the final lap.

Zabala won at the chequered flag, with Piirimagi and Andersson completing the podium as the time penalty was applied to Felipe Fernández, dropping him to fourth.

Andersson leads the championship on 114 points, with Zabala six points behind in second.

The next round of the 2026 TCR Spain season will take place at Valencia, together with the FIA TCR World Tour, on the 12-14th of June.