TCR World and life

26 ITALY Just as in 2018, Salvatore Tavano won TCR Italy’s second race at Vallelunga. But this year he also secured the title with one event still to be run at Monza, on October 18th/20th. His most serious competitor, Marco Pellegrini, scored only four points from the two latest events and so dropped to fourth in the standings, although he is still in contention for second position with Tavano’s teammate Matteo Greco and Enrico Bettera. The three of them are now split by only 11 points. IMOLA – ONE EACH FOR BETTERA AND TAVANO Bettera took command of Race 1, followed by Greco, Igor Stefanovski and Jacopo Guidetti who soon retired with a brake issue. After a safety car intervention, Bettera pulled away, while there was a thrilling battle between Sefanovski, Tavano, Greco, Pellegrini, Eric Scalvini and Felix Wimmer. Positions swapped and there were contacts; eventually Tavano moved into second ahead of Pellegrini, Stefanovski and Wimmer. On the penultimate lap, Pellegrini lost a wheel and went off, and so Stefanovski finished a close third behind Bettera and Tavano. In Race 2, Pellegrini and Tavano began fighting from the start and continued swapping positions (and paint) until lap 5, when Pellegrini went wide following another clash and dropped to sixth. Tavano then built a gap, benefiting from the battle for second between Stefanovski, Wimmer, Guidetti and Greco. Wimmer pitted to fix a loose bonnet, Greco went off in the attempt to overtake Guidetti and the latter passed Stefanovski for second after a contact in the penultimate lap. Tavano took the flag 2.5 seconds before Guidetti, with Stefanovski third, but after the race the Stewards imposed a one-second penalty on Guidetti for the incident with Stefanovski, demoting him to third behind the Macedonian. VALLELUNGA – MUGELLI SCORES A VICTORY AT LAST Massimiliano Mugelli inherited the pole SalvatoreTavano securesthetitle THE SICILIAN DRIVER IS CROWNED CHAMPION FOR THE SECOND TIME