TCR World and life

16 GERMANY RACE 2 – ALL DOWN TO THE FINAL SPRINT At the start, Marcel Fugel pipped pole sitter Phillip Regensperger and took the lead from René Münnich, Hesse and Buri, but in the commotion of the first couple of turns, Buri dropped four places down to eighth and Proczyk moved into fourth. Hesse overtook Münnich for P2 and began chasing Marcel Fugel; they made contact a couple of times and then Hesse took the lead on lap 5. Two laps later the leading quartet in the championship was filling the first four positions in the race, with Hesse chased by Proczyk and Halder defending third place from Buri who finally passed him on lap 15. For the following four laps, Proczyk began eroding Hesse’s leading margin that was reduced to half-a-second, but the Austrian had to watch for Buri who was right behind him. On Lap 19, Sophie Hofmann’s CUPRA was beached at T5 and this prompted the safety car into action once again. Racing resumed for the final lap and Proczyk tried to outbrake Hesse at T1, but locked his front wheels and went a bit wide, opening a gap for Buri who dived through it. They made contact and Buri was through. The Finn was on the tail of Hesse’s car and passed him a couple of corners before the end, but Hesse didn’t give up and so they entered the pit straight abreast, charging together across the finishing line. Buri was ahead by 11 thousandths of a second, but was given the penalty that handed both the race win and the title to Hesse.