Junui Park survives puncture drama to win opening TCR Europe race at Monza
Solite Indigo Racing’s Junui Park came out on top in an chaotic opening TCR Europe race of the weekend at Monza, in which several cars fell by the wayside due to punctures.
Polesitter Gabriele Covini had led the race early on but dropped out of contention with a front-left puncture approaching the Ascari chicane.
Points leader Nicolas Taylor had looked likely to further extend his championship advantage before he too suffered a puncture while running second in the final laps, moments after his title rival Mike Halder also encountered tyre dramas.
The key beneficiary of Covini’s misfortune was Park, who managed his tyres perfectly to take the victory from Monlau Motorsport Cupra drivers Adam Shepherd and Marco Butti.
At the start, Covini got off the line well and maintained his lead into the first corner as several cars further back had to take to the escape road.
Behind Covini, Junui Park held onto second place, with Nicolas Taylor third ahead of the fast-starting Mikhail Simonov.
Among those losing ground on the opening lap was BRC Racing Team’s Alex Ley and things got worse for the Hyundai driver who was involved in another incident at the same corner on lap two.
Mikhail Simonov then became the first of the frontrunners to suffer a puncture coming out of the Ascari chicane, the Cupra driver slowing suddenly from fourth place before coming into the pits.
Covini maintained his rhythm at the front, but he too would also be impacted by puncture dramas. The Italian locked up his front-left tyre under braking for Ascari and had to take to the gravel trap.
Park inherited the lead but immediately came under pressure from Taylor’s Audi RS 3 LMS TCR.
The pair were closely matched on lap-times, with Taylor appearing to back off after team-mate Nicola Baldan was also forced out with a puncture.
Despite backing off, Taylor was also impacted and the Canadian driver tumbled down the order with just over a minute remaining, again with a puncture.
He joined Halder, Junesung Park and Julien Briché in the pits to replace tyres.
Amid the chaos, Shepherd emerged in second place at the end, having earlier been involved in a frantic scrap with Butti and Halder for what had been sixth place.
The pair of Cupra León VZ TCRs came into their own in the middle of the race and had a pace advantage over Halder’s Honda.
Shepherd, who claimed his maiden TCR Europe podium, backed off considerably in the final laps, ending up over 16s adrift of Park, with Butti third.
Ley recovered strongly after his early offs to finish fourth, while ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt took fifth ahead of Viktor Andersson.
Having started near the back of the grid, Raphael Fournier picked up seventh place ahead of Carl Boardley and Mikael Karlsson with René Povlsen completing the top 10.
Race 2 is scheduled to take place tomorrow morning at 11:05 CEST.
