Luca Engstler leads a Hyundai quartet in Lausitzring’s Race 1

Luca Engstler converted his pole position into his third victory of the season in the first race of the ADAC TCR Germany at the Lausitzring. He led a 1-2-3-4 finish for Hyundai cars and extended his leading margin in the standings to 41 points over Eric Scalvini.
Engstler got off to a good start ahead of Jonas Karklys and his own teammates Martin Andersen and Nico Gruber. At the back of the field, Wimmer Werk Motorsport colleagues Christian Voithofer and Peter Gross made contact and spun; they both managed to rejoin.
During the second lap, René Kircher overtook Scalvini for P6, but the Italian retook the position one lap later. 
Engstler tried to create a gap, but Karklys and Andersen did not lose contact, while Gruber was running fourth ahead of the Honda cars of Marcel and Dominik Fugel.
In lap 8, Robin Jahr punted Roland Hertner into a spin, they both continued but Jahr was given a drive-through for the incident.
After making several attempts, Andersen finally passed Karklys for second, with their cars making contact into Turn 1. In the meantime, Engstler had built a 1.2-second gap, but that was wiped out when the safety car was deployed after Kircher had parked his car alongside the track with a smoking engine.
Racing resumed for a final lap, but there were no changes for the top-six places, with Engstler winning ahead of Andersen, Karklys, Gruber, Marcel Fugel and Scalvini.
Behind them, there was a last gasp battle for P7. Eventually, guest driver Christopher Röhner was able to pip on the line Dominik Fugel and Philipp Regensperger; the latter had recovered to finish ninth after starting from the back of the grid following his disqualification from Qualifying – in which he had posted the third fastest lap – for the use of unmarked tyres.
Track action will resume tomorrow morning at 13:40 (CEST) with the Qualifying session for Race 2.

Lausitzring – Race 1
1. Luca Engstler (Hyundai Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 20 laps
2. Martin Andersen (Hyundai Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 3.091
3. Jonas Karklys (Nordpass Jutaracing, Hyundai i30 N), 3.973
4. Nico Gruber (Hyundai Team Engstler, Hyundai i30 N), 4.978
5. Marcel Fugel (Team ADAC Sachsen, Honda Civic Type R Fk7), 1.814

Championship points
1. L. Engstler 153; 2. E. Scalvini 112; 3. D. Fugel 105 

Picture: ADAC Motorsport/Gruppe C Photography