Victory for Kobe Pauwels in the opening TCR Europe race at Barcelona means the three-way fight for the drivers’ title will go to the wire on Sunday, after he beat Comtoyou Racing team-mates Tom Coronel and John Filippi.
Although Coronel had put his Audi on pole position earlier in the day, at the start of the race young Belgian Pauwels got the jump on his more experienced team-mate, leading before the pack even got to the first corner.
Pauwels then controlled the remainder of the 12-lap race to claim a sixth TCR Europe win of the season, closing in Coronel’s points advantage to just eight points ahead of Sunday’s final race of the season.
Coronel kept Pauwels honest throughout the race distance, never more than a second behind to finish in second, just 0.886 seconds adrift, his tenth podium finish of the season keeping him atop the drivers’ standings.
John Filippi was third, which too kept the Corsican’s increasingly slim title chances alive, with Filippi largely keeping up with the leading duo throughout the relatively sedate race.
Nicola Baldan made it a Comtoyou 1-2-3-4, having dived past Lewis Brown for the position on the second lap with a bold late move at Turn 7.
Brown had looked set to finish in either fifth or sixth, but having been caught by ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt, the pair made contact on lap nine.
Volt had just dived up the inside of Brown at Turn 5, but Brown edged back in front as they went through the flat-out Turn 6, before braking for the Turn 7 kink.
However, with Volt tucked in close behind the pair made contact, pitching Brown into the gravel and tumbling down the order.
Volt initially took the chequered flag in fifth but was handed a post-race 30-second penalty for the incident, dropping him to 13th and last.
The biggest beneficiary was MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson, who had made a slow getaway when the race started, dropping him to 11th, before he gained a place back past Levente Losonczy on the second lap at the first corner.
Andersson was up to seventh past Volcano Motorsport’s Daniel Tkachenko on lap six, and was ultimately classified in fifth when the aforementioned incident with Volt and Brown was considered.
RC2 Racing’s series returnee Pepe Oriola was sixth, ahead of Tkachenko in seventh and Comtoyou’s Viktor Davidovski in eighth.
The top ten was completed by Losonczy and RC2’s Rubén Fernández Gil, with the recovering Brown in 11th.
Race two is scheduled to get underway at 12:20 CEST on Sunday (11:20 BST).
Race result
| POS | NO | CL | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | BEST | GD |
| 1 | 22 |  |
Kobe PAUWELS | Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 12 | 22:23.123 | 1:50.643 | 2 | |
| 2 | 34 |  |
Tom CORONEL | Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 12 | 0.886 | 1:50.673 | 1 | |
| 3 | 27 |  |
John FILIPPI | Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 12 | 1.479 | 1:51.064 | 3 | |
| 4 | 8 |  |
Nicola BALDAN | Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 12 | 2.720 | 1:50.836 | 6 | |
| 5 | 10 |  |
Viktor ANDERSSON | MA:GP | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 12 | 9.307 | 1:51.314 | 5 | |
| 6 | 74 |  |
Pepe ORIOLA | RC2 Racing Team | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 12 | 14.776 | 1:51.741 | 10 | |
| 7 | 7 |  |
Daniel TKACHENKO | Volcano Motorsport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 12 | 16.690 | 1:51.545 | 9 | |
| 8 | 11 |  |
Viktor DAVIDOVSKI | Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 12 | 17.620 | 1:52.174 | 8 | |
| 9 | 264 |  |
Levente LOSONCZY | Aggressive Team Italia | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 12 | 18.540 | 1:52.087 | 7 | |
| 10 | 12 | |
Rubén FERNÁNDEZ Gil | RC2 Racing Team | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 12 | 23.795 | 1:52.537 | 11 | |
| 11 | 39 |  |
Lewis BROWN | Comtoyou Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 12 | 27.014 | 1:51.188 | 4 | |
| 12 | 293 | |
Mauro GUASTAMACCHIA | Aggressive Team Italia | Hyundai Elantra N TCR | 12 | 37.646 | 1:54.046 | 12 | |
| 13 | 127 |  |
Ruben VOLT | ALM Motorsport | Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR | 12 | 39.011 | 1:51.392 | 13 | |
| NS | 33 |  |
Horia-Traian CHIRIGUT | Volcano Motorsport | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | – | DNS | N/A | – |