Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Pepe Oriola and Jordi Gené remain in contention for the TCR International Series drivers’ title, with both Spaniards scoring a podium apiece in the second race on the streets of Singapore.
Whilst Gené won the day’s second race, to add to his sixth in the opening race, Oriola finished in third after battling his way up the order from sixth on the grid.
Gené’s win is his third of the season and keeps him in overall title contention, despite actually losing ground to new points leader Stefano Comini.
“Everything went very well today and I am very happy to still be in the fight for the championship,” said Gené, who is 30 points adrift of the Target Competition driver. “Actually, the car had been excellent throughout the weekend.
“I only had an unlucky qualifying that put me in a difficult position for race one, but my pace was very god yesterday too. Today was a different story and I only needed to stay focused to avoid trouble and mistakes.”
Oriola was forced to carry 30 kg of success ballast for leading the championship heading to Asia, 10 kg more than Comini and 20 kg more than his team-mate. Despite being fastest in both of Friday’s practice sessions, the 21-year-old believes it cost him time in qualifying and the races.
“It is good to finish the weekend on the podium,” said Oriola, who added to his fourth from the first race. “I knew it was going to be a difficult round for me, mainly because of the maximum success ballast I was carrying.
“The car performed well in free practice, then I had a more disappointing qualifying, but the races were OK, and we head now to a very close and exciting final battle for the title.”
Craft-Bamboo Racing’s third driver, Russian Sergey Afanasyev, finished between his two team-mates in fifth in race one, before being involved in late-race contact in race two which saw him finish outside the points.