Bragin places his hands on a third consecutive title

Dmitri Bragin is just one step away from clinching a third consecutive TCR Russia crown. The TAIF Motorsport driver won the second race at Sochi Autodrom and stretched his leading margin in the standings to a comfortable 37 points ahead of Lukoil Racing’s Aleksey Dudukalo, when only 53 are still on offer in the final event at Fort Grozny.
Bragin’s victory – his third in the current season – began with a perfect start from fourth on the grid that was followed by a superb overtaking manoeuvre over Pavel Yashin and Andrej Maslennikov at Turn 1. This promoted Bragin to second behind LADA Sport Rosneft’s Mikhail Grachev.
Grachev was able to pull away, while Aleksey Dudukalo moved up to third and tried to chase after Bragin. However, both the front row starters Grachev and Yashin – who was on pole position – were given a drive-through for a grid infringement. The LADA driver tried to increase his leading margin as much as possible and observed the penalty on the penultimate lap, but could only rejoin and finish eighth, ahead of his teammate Kirill Ladygin who recovered after starting from the pit lane due to a technical issue.
After inheriting the lead, Bragin was able to keep Dudukalo at bay in the final lap, while Maslennikov completed the podium ahead of Anton Badoev, Vladimir Sheshenin and yesterday’s winner Klim Gavrilov.
Bragin’s tally in the standings has reached 193 points; Dudukalo, Gavrilov and Lukashevich are second, third and fourth with 156, 155 and 152 points respectively.
The final race meeting of the series will take place at Fort Grozny on 6/7 October.