Kumho FIA TCR World Tour - Chengdu: Comte and Urrutia are the winners of the day

Santiago Urrutia has completed a fruitful weekend in China for the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour event at Geely-owned Chengdu Tianfu International Circuit.

After having won yesterday’s Race 1 and finished third in this morning’s Race 2, the Uruguayan driver has scored another victory in Race 3, the fifth for him in the current season. Urrutia led his teammate Yann Ehrlacher in another 1-2 finish for Geely Cyan Racing, with Jean-Karl Vernay third once again in a replica of Race 1 podium.

The second race was dominated by the SP Compétition CUPRA Leon VZ cars, with Aurélien Comte scoring his first victory since Zhuzhou last year ahead of Vernay in a historic result flr the French team.

These results helped Urrutia to eat 28 points out of Mikel Azcona’s lead in the standings, with the Spaniard who now is just 23 points ahead.

Norbert Michelisz is still third, but his gap to his teammate has grown to 51 points, while Ehrlacher is only 19 points behind the Hungarian.

The series now moves to Zhejiang Shaoxing Circuit for another three-race event next week.

Championship points (full standings)
1. M. Azcona, 373 pts.; 2. S. Urrutia, 350; 3. N. Michelisz, 322

All pictures: WSC/Paddocker
Information and images: www.fiatcrworldtour.com


Race 2
Comte wins ahead of SP Compétition teammate Vernay
Diego Moran started from pole position on the reversed grid, with Lo Sze Ho alongside, but they both made a slow start, allowing Thed Björk to slice between them and take the lead into T1 ahead of the fast-starting pair of Aurélien Comte and Jean-Karl Vernay. Santiago Urrutia made a strong start from P8 on the grid and moved up to fourth, battling ahead of Norbert Michelisz.
The top three began to break away, with Björk being chased by Comte and Vernay. Comte made his move at the end of lap 5, taking the lead across the line, before Vernay got past the pair of them to go at the front.

Team orders came into play at both SP Compétition and Geely Cyan Racing. Vernay, who is not in title contention after missing three events, handed the lead to Comte on lap 12, while Björk had already let Urrutia through.

Comte won by less than a second ahead of Vernay, while the two CUPRA cars finished over five seconds clear of third-placed Urrutia; a thrilling battle for the seventh place saw Mikel Azcona keeping Yann Ehrlacher at bay throughout the race.

Lo benefitted from Moran’s pit stop to replace a tyre after he had hit a tyre stack, which promoted the Hong Konger as the winner of the Guest Star Trophy, but also Marcus Cheong Man Hei as the winner in TCR Asia.

Race 2 (full results)
1. Aurélien Comte (SP Compétition, CUPRA Leon VZ), 22 laps
2. Jean-Karl Vernay (SP Compétition, CUPRA Leon VZ), 0.770
3. Santiago Urrutia (Geely Cyan Racing, Geely Preface), 5.938


Quotes from the podium - Race 2
Aurélien Comte, 1st: “It’s really cool for the team, it’s an incredible result. My start was good, I was in second place into Turn 1, and then my pace was good compared with practice. I had an opportunity to overtake Thed in the final corner, and then Jean-Karl passed me and Thed in the first corner, but then Jean-Karl gave me back the position five laps from the end, it was an incredible job by the team today.”

Jean-Karl Vernay, 2nd: “This race was good, my start was average and I was able to get to third and then I enjoyed watching the fight between Aurélien and Thed. Then I just went for it and later gave the place back. The pace was quite good, I’m happy to help the team and super-happy for Sylvain Pussier because the effort he’s making, and I do my best to help them in the fight for the championship.”

Santiago Urrutia, 3rd: “We need to go race-by-race. We do what is best. I think overall the weekend is going very well, with Yann on pole and me winning yesterday. Today coming from P8 I was surprised to finish P3. Let’s see now in Race 3, I start from the front so it’s important to do a clean start and to just go. We’re having a strong weekend, not just me, but the team.”


Race 3
Urrutia strikes back in another 1-2 for Geely Cyan Racing
Santiago Urrutia started from the pole, based on points scored so far this weekend, and led ahead of Yann Ehrlacher into T1, while Aurélien Comte managed to pass Jean-Karl Vernay. Behind them, Mikel Azcona settled into fifth, while Norbert Michelisz lost two positions as he was passed by both Ma Qing Hua and Thed Björk. Björk made contact with Michelisz in the process, and the incident has been referred to the stewards.

While the two Geely Cyan Racing drivers began to pull away from Comte and Vernay, the CUPRA pair swapped positions on lap 8, with Vernay showing more speed. Vernay, however, didn’t have the pace to close the gap on Urrutia and Ehrlacher, who had a comfortable run to the finish.
Vernay completed the podium, while Comte backed off on the last lap and let Azcona past to reduce the amount of compensation weight he needs to carry next weekend at Zhejiang.
Bayern Yip Wai Hei scored his first Guest Star Trophy win with ninth, while his Evolve Racing teammate Lo Sze Ho had to pit with a technical issue early on; Diego Moran claimed his second victory of the weekend in TCR Asia.

Race 3 (full results)
1. Santiago Urrutia (Geely Cyan Racing, Geely Preface), 22 laps
2. Yann Ehrlacher (Geely Cyan Racing, Geely Preface), 0.551
3. Jean-Karl Vernay (SP Compétition, CUPRA Leon VZ), 6.812


Quotes from the podium - Race 3
Santiago Urrutia, 1st: “Thank you to my team, and to Yann. We’re really happy with this weekend. In terms of the championship and especially because we have collected a lot of points for the Teams’ championship. We have worked so hard and capitalised everything, and Yann with the podiums has done a really good job. I have nothing to say about the championship, as we still go race-by-race and there’s a lot of races to go.”

Yann Ehrlacher, 2nd: “Well done to all the drivers, and well done to JK (Vernay) coming back after so many years. It’s great to see talented drivers come back. It was a good weekend for us, it was our biggest race of the season, and with important points for the team, and a good recovery for Santi in the drivers’ championship; he’s there in the fight for the title. We are still learning this car and we’re optimising everything we can, but I’m really happy with the weekend.”

Jean-Karl Vernay, 3rd: “It was a good race. I was a bit aggressive with the clutch at the start, so I took a lot of risk as I had the chance to overtake one of the Geely cars but it didn’t work. Later in the race I was behind them but with no pace, so I was just driving consistently but the guys were really strong. Thanks again to SP Compétition for the great work this weekend, and I’m getting happier every day competing behind the wheel.”


Guest Star Trophy
Evolve Racing drivers take one apiece
Lo Sze Ho and Bayern Yip Wai Hei won the two Guest Star Trophies in Races 2 and 3 of the Chengdu weekend of the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour on Sunday.

Lo started the race from second place, but after a slow start, settled in behind the TCR World Tour regulars. He found himself in a battle with TCR Asia’s leader Diego Moran, who had won the trophy in the first race on Saturday, but after Moran collected a tyre stack and damaged his front-right tyre, it left Lo with an easy path to victory in his Hyundai Elantra N.

Lo had a technical issue early in the second race, which promoted his teammate Yip to the trophy lead. The Hong Konger would hold on to claim his first Guest Star Trophy victory in his sixth TCR World Tour start.

Lo Sze Ho said: “I got some wheelspin at my start, and had to switch to second gear and after that I just tried to avoid any contact as these drivers are fighting for the world championship. After that, my pace was very strong, and to get some trophies here is very special for me.”