Girolami escapes from the battle and wins again

Néstor Girolami encored his Saturday win in Race 1 and headed the TCR Australia field in the second race as well. The Argentine started from the pole and escaped from the furious battle behind him. On the slippery track, many drivers made mistakes and this resulted in positions reshuffled at every lap and a number of collisions.
Girolami made good use of the pole and led from Cox who was third on the grid; title contenders Will Brown and Dylan O’Keeffe made poor starts and dropped to sixth and 12^th respectively. In lap 1, Girolami was chased by Jordan Cox and John Martin, while James Moffatt followed in fourth place ahead of Garth Tander, Brown, Russell Ingall and Nathan Morcom.
In lap 2, Brown passed Tander for P5, while Bryce Fullwood hit Morcom who spun onto the gravel at T9 and was given a drive-through for the incident; at the beginning of the following lap Ingall spun off at T1 and the safety car was deployed.
When racing resumed on lap 7, Cox skidded at T1 and spread panic behind; Brown went wide and collided with Tander, Moffatt benefited from the commotion and moved into second. Girolami pulled away, while Cox defended the third position despite he was hit by Martin and Tander; Brown dropped and was passed by O’Keeffe for P6. Two laps later, Alexandra Whiteley’s Volkswagen Golf stopped on the track and this prompted the safety car back into action, while Martin pitted with a broken suspension.
At the restart, in lap 13, Cox was wide again at T1 and so Tander passed him and then Moffatt to move into second, while O’Keeffe passed André Heimgartner for P5. In lap 14, both Heimgartner and Tony D’Alberto moved ahead of O’Keeffe, then Heimgartner hit Cox who spun off.
Girolami took his second win from Tander, Moffatt and Heimgartner who was then dropped to 12^th by a 30-second penalty for the incident with Cox. This elevated D’Alberto, Aaron Cameron, Jason Bright, Brown and O’Keeffe in the positions from fourth to eighth.
In the championship standings, Brown has gained two more points over O’Keeffe.
Race 2 will start at 13:20 local time (04:20 CET); live streaming live at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.

Race 2
1. Néstor Girolami (Wall Racing, Honda Civic FK7), 16 laps
2. Garth Tander (Melbourne Performance Centre, Audi RS 3 LMS), 1.5868
3. James Moffatt (Garry Rogers Motorsport, Renault Mégane RS), 4.1081
4. Tony D’Alberto (Wall Racing, Honda Civic FK7), 5.6668
5. Aaron Cameron (Melbourne Performance Centre, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 6.1974

Championship points
1. Will Brown 596 pts; 2. O’Keeffe 462; 3. Tony D’Alberto 431