Achieving pole in Pau-Ville is 70% of the victory and ‘Bebu’ has put in the rest to start the year with this result. Néstor Girolami has scored the victory in the first WTCR race on the French urban track after mastering the test from start to finish. With Esteban Guerrieri as squireGirolami led the one-two for Honda and the Münnich Motorsport team under the watchful eye of a Yvan Muller who has had to settle for third position. Sixth place for Mikel Azcona on his WTCR debut with Hyundai.
Néstor Girolami signed a perfect start in communion with his teammate Esteban Guerrieri to block the first two positions and not give way to Yvan Muller and Nathanaël Berthon. The champion Yann Ehrlacher won the game against a Ma Qing Hua who also lost position with Attila Tassi in a rather complex start in which Mikel Azcona managed to retain eighth place due to a poor start from Santiago Urrutia. After the first lap, the positions were settled within the peloton, that rolled forming a meandering colored ‘worm’ in the streets of Pau.
Hostilities began in the third lap between Urrutia and Azcona with a small touch from the Uruguayan to the Spanish. However, Mikel withstood the rush and managed to retain eighth place in his Hyundai Elantra N TCR. All in all, it was necessary to wait almost five more minutes to see an overtaking in normal race conditions. Gilles Magnus overtook Norbert Michelisz for tenth position. Then, Ma Qing Hua overtook Attila Tassi for sixth placetouch the Honda included. ‘Push’ that Azcona and Urrutia took advantage of to also overtake Tassi.
When the halfway point of the race had not yet been reached, Thed Björk pitted with problems in his Lynk & Co 03 TCR. Despite the great work of the team to repair the car after the serious accident that the Swedish driver had in qualifying, some kind of problem ended up reproducing. For its part, Tiago Monteiro fell to the back of the peloton after making a mistake and going wide at the hairpin at the end of the finish line. Between one mishap and another, the race evolved until its last 10 minutes.
Santiago Urrutia returned to give a ‘kiss’ to Mikel Azcona’s Hyundai Elantra. It did not get a better result, with the clock inexorably approaching zero. However, there were still times to see several moments of tension. With damage to the right side of your Audi, Nathanaël Berthon could not close the door on Yann Ehrlacher in their duel for fourth place. Ma Qing Hua was also ahead of the Frenchman. Mikel Azcona also tried, but it was the French until you put him out of the game. Berthon was in the pits with Attila Tassi.
Oblivious to these incidents, Néstor Girolami secured the victory ahead of his teammate Esteban Guerrieri, in a perfect one-two for Honda and the Münnich Motorsport team. Yvan Muller completed the podium ahead of his teammate Yann Ehrlacher, while Ma Qing Hua managed to save the fifth position against the attacks of Mikel Azcona. Santiago Urrutia crossed the finish line in seventh place, just ahead of Gilles Magnus, Norbert Michelisz and Mehdi Bennani, best driver of the WTCR Trophy by finishing tenth, ahead of Tom Coronel, Rob Huff and Dániel Nagy.
Results Classification of the WTCR 2022 in Circuit of pAU
Photos: FIA WTCR