Belgian Gilles Magnus has achieved the second victory of the new Audi RS 3 LMS TCR in the World Touring Car Cup after winning the WTCR race on an inverted grid at the Hungaroring. The Comtoyou driver dominated the race from start to finish, controlling his rivals both at the start and in the jump caused by the presence of the Safety Car. As the great agitator of the race, Mikel Azcona finished second, although this result may not be final due to the two touches he has had during the race with Yvan Muller and Frédéric Vervisch. For its part, champion and new leader Yann Ehrlacher was third.
Gilles Magnus managed to sign a good start to keep Frédéric Vervisch under control. Behind the two Audi drivers, the Spanish Mikel Azcona lightly touched Yvan Muller, which made the French fall to the bottom of the pack. The champion Yann Ehrlacher took advantage of this small incident to sneak third, ahead of the Navarrese. Thed Björk thus climbed to fifth place, followed by Norbert Michelisz and Rob Huff. Despite the start incident, Mikel Azcona continued to show his most combative version and quickly got into a beautiful battle with Yann Ehrlacher for third position on the podium.
Santiago Urrutia managed to correct his bad start after beating Esteban Guerrieri in his duel for eighth position, although the maneuver cost him to lose the wake of Rob Huff, the last driver in the front group. Behind, Attila Tassi was especially tough on Nathanaël Berthon, a maneuver that unleashed a chaotic situation in which Gabriele Tarquini, Tom Coronel and Jean-Karl Vernay were also involved. This situation gave Yvan Muller on foot to reach the group after gaining five positions since the start incident. In fact, the veteran French pilot surpassed Colonel before the end of the fourth lap.
The race reached its equator with the first two consolidated places. In fact, Gilles Magnus stretched his lead and extended his lead to 1.8 seconds over his teammate Frédéric Vervisch. It wasn’t the same situation right behind, since Mikel Azcona managed to overtake Yann Ehrlacher with a great maneuver to get into third position. In parallel, hostilities in the rear group continued to grow. With everything, Rob Huff’s abandonment marked the development of the following laps. In fact, the Safety CAR made an appearance when the British CUPRA León Competición was stopped on the track due to a ruptured suspension.
The race restarted with three laps to go, albeit with a quieter script than you might expect. In fact, the overhang was clean, with no position changes and very few attacks. Azcona was the only one to break this script by showing the car to Frédéric Vervisch without achieving overtaking. The duel between the two allowed Gilles Magnus to escape in a clear way in search of victory. Thus the last lap was entered, with the triumph of the Belgian Magnus almost assured and the great unknown of whether Azcona could finally defeat Vervisch’s defensive efforts.
Without any setback, Gilles Magnus assured victory in the first WTCR race at the Hungaroring. Behind, Mikel Azcona pushed Frédéric Vervisch off the track, which was worth him to cross the finish line in second position. However, the result of the Navarrese remained under questions due to his double contact with Müller and Vervisch. Fishing in troubled river, Yann Ehrlacher took the third position ahead of Frédéric Vervisch himself. For his part, Thed Björk crossed the finish line in fifth place ahead of Norbert Michelisz, Santiago Urrutia and Esteban Guerrieri. The ‘top 10’ was closed by Néstor Girolami and Tiago Monteiro.
WTCR 2021 Race 1 Results at Hungaroring