TCR World and life

12 RUSSIA Mityaevstartsoff ontherightfoot Mikhail Mityaev joined LADA Sport Rosneft at the end of last year and proved he had been a good pick for the team by taking the lead of the TCR Russia series standings after the season opener at Smolensk Ring. Mityaev claimed an authoritative maiden victory in the first race, beating his teammate Kirill Ladygin; then finished second behind the LUKOIL Racing Team Audi RS 3 LMS of Aleksey Dudukalo in Race 2, but ahead of Ladygin once again. RACE 1 – MIKHAIL MITYAEV LEADS A LADA 1-2 The race started under pouring rain, after three laps behind the safety car. Ivan Lukashevich sprinted from pole, while his teammate Andrej Maslennikov, who sat alongside him on the front row, lost second position to Mityaev. During the first lap Dmitry Bragin and Ladygin also passed Maslennikov and began fighting for P3. At the end of the lap, Mityaev snatched the lead from Lukashevich with a masterpiece overtaking manoeuvre on the outside of the last corner. As the rain eased off, Mityaev began to increase the gap, while Lukashevich, Ladygin and Bragin provided an exciting battle for the remaining podium places that saw plenty of swapping positions and paint. During the final two laps, Lukashevich’s pace faded a little, which enabled both Ladygin and Bragin to move into P2 and P3 respectively, but on the final lap Lukashevich retook third from Bragin. LADA SPORT’S NEWDRIVER LEADS AFTER THE OPENING EVENT Klim Gavrilov, who had set the fourth fastest lap in Qualifying did not start, as his VRC-Team Hyundai i30 N suffered from a fuel pump failure. RACE 2 – DUDUKALO WINS UNDER THE RED FLAG At the start, Dudukalo took the lead from Ladygin, Bragin, Grigory Burlutskyi and Mityaev. The latter was able to pass the three drivers ahead and so moved into P2 by the end of the first lap. The race was then neutralized by the safety car after a crash that involved Anton Nemkin’s Honda Civic and Andrej Radoshnov’s VW Golf. When action resumed, Dudukalo was closely followed by Mityaev; behind them, Ladygin overtook Bragin for P3