TCR Russia’s season opener takes place at Smolensk Ring

LADA Sport Rosneft and Kirill Ladygin face the new season of TCR Russia that starts at the Smolensk Ring, as the title defenders.
The champion team has confirmed the line-up of two LADA Vesta Sport cars for Ladygin and Mikhail Mityaev, while the reigning champion of the RCRS S1600 Junior title Egor Forkin has been entrusted with a third Vesta run by A.M.G. Motorsport. 
The LADA trio face an experienced bunch of drivers in Audi and Hyundai cars. Among them is the four-time champion Dmitry Bragin who has dropped the Hyundai i30 N he drove during the last two years – winning the 2019 title – and reverted to an Audi RS 3 LMS with which he won the championship twice: 2017 and 2018.
Lukoil Racing Team has retained two Lukashevich and Andrej Maslennikov in two Hyundai i30 N cars, while the 25-year-old Egor Orudzhev with past experience in single-seater and sportscars categories, has taken over the Audi RS 3 LMS previously driven by Aleksey Dudukalo. Another Hyundai driver with great ambitions is Grigory Burlutskyi of Carville Racing.
Newcomers to the series are former European champions: Matvey Furazhkin and Aydar Nuriev who won the 2019 titles in Touring Autocross and Rallycross S1600 respectively.
Live streaming of the races, Sunday at www.tcr-series.com; Race 1 at 11:45, Race 2 at 16:15 local times (10:45 and 15:15 CEST).

TCR Russia - entry list
4 - Dmitry Bragin (TAIF Motorsport, Audi RS 3 LMS)
5 - Evgenyi Metzker (RUMOS Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)
11 - Kirill Ladygin (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport)
12 - Matvey Furazhkin (Carville Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)
17 - Pavel Kalmanovich (AG Team, CUPRA)
19 - Zakhar Slutzky (Carville Racing, Hyundai i30 N)
30 - Mikhail Mityaev (LADA Sport Rosneft, LADA Vesta Sport)
47 - Lev Tolkachev (RUMOS Racing, Hyundai i30 N)
48 - Aydar Nuriev (AG Team, Audi RS 3 LMS)
50 - Egor Orudzhev (Lukoil Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS)
62 - Ivan Lukashevich (Lukoil Racing, Hyundai i30 N)
71 - Andrej Maslennikov (Lukoil Racing, Hyundai i30 N)
78 - Egor Fokin (A.M.G. Motorsport, LADA Vesta Sport)
89 - Timur Shigabutdinov (TAIF Motorsport, Audi RS 3 LMS)
91 - Grigory Burlutskyi (Carville Racing, Hyundai i30 N)

Picture: Grigory Golyshev