Eversley takes commanding victory in Virginia

Ryan Eversley became the third race winner in the TCR category of the 2018 Pirelli World Challenge when he drove his Honda Civic Type R FK7 to a lights-to-flag victory at the Virginia International Raceway on Saturday.
Eversley made a great start from pole position, unlike the man alongside him on the front row of the grid, JT Coupal, who dropped to fifth place when he locked his Audi’s brakes going into Turn 1. It was then the series leader, Mark Wilkins, who posed the greatest threat to Eversley and the pair battled for the lead for the first half of the race. When they caught traffic on lap 10, Eversley was able to pass the backmarkers more cleanly and so opened up a lead of nearly three seconds. Any hopes of Wilkins repeating his Race 2 victory at the Circuit of the Americas were already fading when the Hyundai i30 N TCR then pulled up with apparent mechanical issues with around six minutes of the forty-minute race remaining.
The undoubted drive of the race came from Wilkins’ teammate Michael Lewis, the winner of the season’s opening race at COTA. Forced to start from fourteenth on the grid after Qualifying was cut short by a red flag, Lewis steadily carved his way through the field to lie in seventh place by Lap 7. He then passed Michael Hurczyn for sixth place, JT Coupal for fifth and Mason Filippi for fourth on successive laps, setting the race’s fastest lap time in the process. Despite some strong defensive moves from Jérimy Daniel in an Audi RS3 LMS, Lewis grabbed third place on Lap 16 and then inherited second place following Wilkins’ retirement two laps later.
At the chequered flag, Eversley’s Honda had a commanding lead over the Hyundai of a determined Lewis, with the Audi of Daniel completing the podium. Filippi finished fourth in his Volkswagen Golf GTI, making it four different brands in the top four places. Anthony Geraci (Audi RS3 LMS), Coupal (Audi RS3 LMS), Martin Jensen (Alfa Romeo Giulietta), Nate Vincent (Volkswagen Golf GTI), Matt Fassnacht (Audi RS3 LMS) and Dwight Merriman (Volkswagen Golf GTI) rounded off the top ten.
Race 2 at the Virginia International Raceway takes place on Sunday at 10:20 local time (14:20 GMT); live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.