Dominik Fugel dominates opening race at the Sachsenring

Team Honda ADAC Sachsen’s Dominik Fugel comfortably won the opening ADAC TCR Germany race at the Sachsenring, as championship leader Luca Engstler retired from the race with mechanical issues.

Fugel made a good getaway when the lights went out to lead into the first corner, as behind him brother Marcel Fugel and Hyundai Team Engstler’s Martin Andersen battled for second, with Marcel Fugel trying to pass on the outside line.

As Marcel and Andersen battled, it gave Luca Engstler the opportunity to benefit and the German moved into second by the end of the first lap, ahead of Fugel and Andersen.

Despite assuming second, even Engstler had no answer to Dominik Fugel’s pace, and by lap ten he was over ten seconds adrift.

Disaster then struck for Engstler on lap 11 when he slowed on track, being forced into the pitlane as his Hyundai crawled around with a possible transmission issue.

That promoted Marcel Fugel into second for a time, but on lap 14 Andersen had closed back in on the Honda, and the pair made slight contact at the exit of Turn 1 on lap 15.

At the end of the lap, under intense pressure from Andersen and René Kircher’s Volkswagen, who had closed in on the battle, Marcel Fugel took a tight defensive line into the last corner and was easily slingshot by both drivers going onto the start/finish straight.

A few laps later, Marcel Fugel appeared to experience technical issues and dropped out of the top ten.

During this time, Philipp Regensperger had worked his way up to fifth in the Lubner Motorsport Opel, although he came under increasing pressure from Patrick Sing and Christopher Röhner.

On the penultimate lap both Sing and Röhner found a way past Regensperger for fourth and fifth respectively, with the latter also benefitting from the demise of Nico Gruber, who had been running in sixth.

At the front, Dominik Fugel took an easy win, his third at the Sachsenring, by almost fifteen seconds from Andersen and Kircher.

Sing and Röhner were fourth and fifth after their late-race move on Regensperger, who was sixth.

Robin Jahr took seventh, despite starting the race from the back of the grid, ahead of Roland Hertner in eighth, the 61-year-old benefitting from a scrappy race ahead of him.

The top ten was completed by Szymon Ładniak, this weekend returning to the series in a CUPRA, and the Hyundai of Jonas Karklys, who dropped down the order late in the race after battling his way up to eighth at one stage.

Title contender Eric Scalvini never really showed signs of moving up the order after a poor qualifying session, and on lap nine his issues were compounded when he was hit by the recovering Albert Legutko, who had gone wide into Turn 1 and then clipped Scalvini’s CUPRA, sending him into a half-spin. The Italian ultimately finished in 13^th, whilst Engstler was classified 16^th, two laps down.

The result means Engstler retains his points lead (255) ahead of Scalvini (190), Dominik Fugel (178), Andersen (177) and Gruber (136).

Race result

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	88			Dominik FUGEL	Honda ADAC Sachsen	Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR	22	22 LAPS	1:27.498	1
2	19			Martin ANDERSEN	Hyundai Team Engstler	Hyundai i30 N TCR	22	14.389	1:28.632	2
3	80			René KIRCHER	Volkswagen Team Oettinger	Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR	22	20.529	1:28.989	5
4	34			Patrick SING	RaceSing	Hyundai i30 N TCR	22	25.079	1:29.947	10
5	47			Christopher RÖHNER	Honda ADAC Sachsen	Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR	22	25.278	1:29.861	6
6	33			Philipp REGENSPERGER	Lubner Motorsport	Opel Astra TCR	22	34.790	1:28.893	7
7	22			Robin JAHR	ROJA Motorsport by ASL Lichtblau	Hyundai i30 N TCR	22	36.334	1:29.967	17
8	9			Roland HERTNER	Hyundai Team Engstler	Hyundai i30 N TCR	22	45.183	1:30.266	13
9	21			Szymon ŁADNIAK	JP Motorsport	CUPRA TCR	22	45.268	1:30.609	12
10	27			Jonas KARKLYS	NordPass	Hyundai i30 N TCR	22	59.006	1:29.743	9
11	5			Peter GROSS	Wimmer Werk Motorsport	Audi RS3 LMS TCR	22	1:05.024	1:30.724	15
12	97			Nicolas GRUBER	Hyundai Team Engstler	Hyundai i30 N TCR	21	+ 1 LAP	1:28.872	8
13	6			Eric SCALVINI	Wimmer Werk Motorsport	CUPRA Leon Competición TCR	21	+ 1 LAP	1:29.381	11
14	56			Günter BENNINGER	Wimmer Werk Motorsport	CUPRA Leon Competición TCR	21	+ 1 LAP	1:33.301	16
15	55			Marcel FUGEL	Honda ADAC Sachsen	Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR	21	+ 1 LAP	1:28.216	3
16	8			Luca ENGSTLER	Hyundai Team Engstler	Hyundai i30 N TCR	20	+ 2 LAPS	1:28.198	4
17	17			Albert LEGUTKO	Albert Legutko Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK2 TCR	14	DNF	1:29.872	14
18	99			Christian VOITHOFER	Wimmer Werk Motorsport	CUPRA Leon Competición TCR	1	DNF	N/A	18