Another win for Luca Engstler in TCR China Race 1

Luca Engstler’s clear round in TCR China continues as he won Race 1 of the series’ finale at Zhouzhou International Circuit. After he dominated the previous event with pole position and two race victories, the young German was again the fastest in Qualifying and converted the pole position into his third consecutive win.
Daniel Lloyd was classified second and cut six points off Huang Chu Han’s leading margin in the standings. However, Huang – who finished fifth in today’s race – still has an advantage of 14 points when only 20 will be on offer in tomorrow’s last race.
On a damp track, Engstler took the lead from the start ahead of the MacPro trio of Martin Xie, Lloyd, André Couto, Zhang Zhen Dong’s MG and Huang.
Lloyd overtook Xie on lap 3 and tried to close the gap to Engstler, but the Hyundai driver managed to keep his advantage stable around three seconds. In lap 5, Couto passed Xie for P3 and Huang overtook Zheng for P5. For a few laps the MG driver kept on chasing Huang’s Audi, but in the second part of the race his pace faded and eventually he pitted on the penultimate lap.
Engstler won from Lloyd, Couto, Xie, Huang and Kenneth Look.
Race 2 will start at 11:20 local time (04:20 CET); live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.

Race 1
1. Luca Engstler (Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 14 laps
2. Daniel Lloyd (MacPro Racing, Honda Civic FK8), 2.909
3. André Couto (MacPro Racing, Honda Civic FK8), 8.820
4. Martin Xie (MacPro Racing, Honda Civic FK8), 17.271
5. Huang Chu Han (Team NewFaster, Audi RS 3 LMS), 31.954

Championship points
1. Huang 134 pts; 2. Lloyd 120; 3. Look 92