Eric Scalvini won the second ADAC TCR Germany race of the weekend at the Hockenheimring, but it was Luca Engstler who sealed the championship, after the German finished fourth in the reverse-grid race.
At the start, pole-sitter Scalvini moved across to aggressively defend his lead from Engstler into the first corner, with the Wimmer Werk Motorsport driver prevailing and Engstler being forced to cut the corner. The move saw the Italian being shown the black-and-white flag during the race as a warning.
That in turn gave Dominik Fugel, who was up from fifth on the grid, the run to also pass the Hyundai driver on the approach to Turn 2, followed by his brother Marcel Fugel into third, also before the second corner.
In the bustling, Engstler slipped to sixth, behind team-mate Martin Andersen and Nordpass’ Jonas Karklys.
Guest entry Rubén Fernández Gil had a high-speed off at Turn 11 further around the lap – he had been running in seventh but dropped down to the tail of the top ten.
On the third lap, Engstler regained two places, passing Andersen and Karklys, to move up to fourth and begin to apply pressure to Marcel Fugel.
However, the German couldn’t find a way onto the podium, although fourth would be enough to hand him his first TCR Germany title.
Dominik Fugel scored his ninth podium finish of the season in second, just over a second behind Scalvini, with brother Marcel completing the podium for his second visit to the rostrum this year.
Engstler, Sergio López, Andersen and Karklys held station for the rest of the race, which was punctuated by a safety car period after lap seven until lap ten, due to contact between Albert Legutko and Fernández.
As Legutko ran wide on the exit of the Turn 6 hairpin and sought to rejoin the circuit, he made contact with Fernández’s CUPRA, taking the Spaniard out of the race with broken suspension, whilst Legutko stopped on track on lap 14 with a smoking car, again prompting a safety car intervention.
Legutko, who was classified four laps down anyway, was later given a 30-second time penalty for the contact with Fernández.
López had finished fifth on the road behind Engstler, but the RC2 Junior Team driver was later demoted to tenth by a post-race five-second penalty for a jump start.
ROJA Motorsport’s Robin Jahr was classified in seventh, ahead of Hyundai Team Engstler’s Nico Gruber in eighth and Patrick Sing in ninth, the latter bringing up the rear of six Hyundai i30 N cars in a row in the result.
Engstler ultimately clinched his maiden TCR Germany title with an unassailable 337 points, whilst the battle for second is still up for grabs, with the season finale at the Nürburgring next month. Dominik Fugel is currently second with 254 points, ahead of Scalvini on 247.
Race result
| POS | NO | CL | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | BEST | GD |
| 1 | 6 |  |
Eric SCALVINI | Wimmer Werk Motorsport | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 16 | 32:02.931 | 1:49.275 | 1 | |
| 2 | 88 |  |
Dominik FUGEL | Honda ADAC Sachsen | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 16 | 1.125 | 1:49.382 | 5 | |
| 3 | 55 | |
Marcel FUGEL | Honda ADAC Sachsen | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 16 | 2.709 | 1:49.607 | 7 | |
| 4 | 8 | |
Luca ENGSTLER | Hyundai Team Engstler | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 4.833 | 1:49.328 | 2 | |
| 5 | 19 |  |
Martin ANDERSEN | Hyundai Team Engstler | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 5.987 | 1:49.966 | 4 | |
| 6 | 27 |  |
Jonas KARKLYS | NordPass | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 6.585 | 1:49.637 | 3 | |
| 7 | 22 | |
Robin JAHR | ROJA Motorsport by ASL Lichtblau | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 7.076 | 1:50.484 | 13 | |
| 8 | 97 |  |
Nicolas GRUBER | Hyundai Team Engstler | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 8.450 | 1:51.019 | 11 | |
| 9 | 34 | |
Patrick SING | RaceSing | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 10.083 | 1:51.093 | 9 | |
| 10 | 37 |  |
Sergio LÓPEZ | RC2 Junior Team | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 16 | 10.644 | 1:49.728 | 6 | |
| 11 | 5 | |
Peter GROSS | Wimmer Werk Motorsport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 16 | 12.088 | 1:50.565 | 14 | |
| 12 | 99 | |
Christian VOITHOFER | Wimmer Werk Motorsport | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 16 | 16.418 | 1:51.932 | 15 | |
| 13 | 21 |  |
Szymon ŁADNIAK | Halder Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FK8 TCR | 16 | 16.618 | 1:50.662 | 12 | |
| 14 | 56 | |
Günter BENNINGER | Wimmer Werk Motorsport | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 16 | 21.556 | 1:51.690 | 16 | |
| 15 | 17 | |
Albert LEGUTKO | Albert Legutko Racing | Honda Civic Type-R FK2 TCR | 12 | + 4 LAPS | 1:50.814 | 10 | |
| R | 20 |  |
Rubén FERNÁNDEZ Gil | RC2 Junior Team | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 6 | DNF | 1:50.419 | 8 | |
| NS | 9 | |
Roland HERTNER | Hyundai Team Engstler | Hyundai i30 N TCR | – | DNS | N/A | – | |
| NS | 33 | |
Philipp REGENSPERGER | Lubner Motorsport | Opel Astra TCR | – | DNS | N/A | – | |
| NS | 80 | |
René KIRCHER | Volkswagen Team Oettinger | Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR | – | DNS | N/A | – |