Ladygin converts pole position into victory at Igora Drive
Kirill Ladygin made good use of his pole position and drove his LADA Vesta Sport to a lights-to-flag victory in TCR Russia’s first race at the new Igora Drive circuit. Dmitry Bragin finished a close second after defending the position from a charging Aleksey Dudukalo.
The win also meant that Ladygin moved into the points lead ahead of his LADA Sport Rosneft teammate Mikhail Mityaev.
At the start, Ladygin sprinted from the pole to lead into Turn 1; he was followed by Bragin, Pavel Kalmanovich, Ivan Lukashevich and Dudukalo who had made a great start from 12th on the grid. Soon Dudukalo moved two more places forward as he overtook Lukashevich and Kalmanovich.
In lap 4, the safety car was deployed to recover a Super Production car from the gravel and circulated for four laps. When racing resumed in lap 8, Ladygin began to create a gap, while Bragin was committed to defend the second place from Dudukalo. Behind them there was a close fight for P4, with Kalmanovich closely followed by Lukashevich, Andrej Maslennikov, Grigory Burlutskyi, Klim Gavrilov and Mikhail Mityaev.
Despite the battle, positions did not change until the end.
Race 2 is due to start at 16:55 local time (15:55 CEST) with Rustam Fatkhutdinov and Andrej Radoshnov sharing the front row of the reversed grid; live streaming at www.tcr-series.com.
Race 1
1. Kirill Ladygin (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport), 13 laps
2. Dmitry Bragin (STC TAIF Motorsport, Hyundai i30 N), 1.010
3. Aleksey Dudukalo (LUKOIL Racing Team, Audi RS 3 LMS), 1.423
4. Pavel Kalmanovich (AG Team, CUPRA), 2.304
5. Ivan Lukashevich (LUKOIL Racing Team, Hyundai i30 N), 4.065
Championship points
1. Kirill Ladygin 63 pts; 2. Mikhail Mityaev 53; 3. Aleksey Dudukalo 49
Picture: Grigory Golyshev
