Leonel Pernía and Juan Ángel Rosso share Oberá victories

Honda YPF Racing’s Leonel Pernía and Paladini Racing’s Juan Ángel Rosso shared the victories in TCR South America’s visit to Oberá in Argentina.

Leonel Pernía qualified his Honda on pole position on Saturday, beating team-mate Nelson Piquet Jr by 0.175 seconds, as son Tiago Pernía made it a Squadra Martino 1-2-3 at the front of the field.

At the start of the first race, whilst Leonel Pernía and Piquet pulled away well when the lights went out, Tiago Pernía made a slower start and dropped to fifth behind Pedro Cardoso and Raphael Reis.

Much of the race was a subdued affair, as Leonel Pernía and Piquet kept a consistent gap at the front.

However, later in the race Leonel Pernía came under increasing pressure from both Piquet and Cardoso, and on lap 17 reigning champion Cardoso got by Piquet for second and began to apply pressure to race leader Pernía.

Despite applying significant pressure on the final lap, Carodso was unable to find a way through, as Leonel Pernía clinched his second win of the season ahead of the Peugeot, with Piquet completing the podium in his Honda.

Tiago Pernía stole fourth from Reis on the final lap, leaving the W2 Pro GP CUPRA driver to settle for fifth.

The rest of the order saw few changes in the relatively sedate race; Fabián Yannantuoni took sixth, the Paladini Racing driver having actually dropped two places at the start before finally getting past Fabricio Pezzini’s CUPRA late in the race.

Pezzini was thus seventh, ahead of PMO Racing duo Luis Ramírez and Genaro Rasetto, with Paladini Racing’s Juan Ángel Rosso, who had to start from the back of the grid, completing the top ten.

Race two

The second race saw Paladini Racing’s Santino Balerini start on the reverse-grid pole position, and the Toyota racer made a good start to open a clear lead over team-mate Rosso, who had hauled his Lynk & Co up to second at the start.

Piquet was immediately slow away from the line and the Brazilian ultimately limped to the pits with a technical issue and out of the race.

The first half of the race was a relatively quiet affair, although on the eighth lap María Nienkötter lost control of her Toyota whilst running in last and when the field came around again on the next lap she almost caused an accident by pulling in front of leaders, who narrowly avoided a collision.

Tiago Pernía lost three places on the same lap when he tried to pass Yannantuoni, but the Argentine youngster was able to rejoin.

In the second half of the race, Yannantuoni seemed to be the man on the move, passing Leonel Pernía for seventh on lap 13, before gaining two places on the next lap when he capitalised on contact between Cardoso and Reis, the latter hitting Cardoso just after he had muscled through.

Leonel Pernía also benefitted past Reis into seventh, who had lost three places.

Two laps later, Yannantuoni overtook Pezzini for fourth and immediately set about trying to pass Ramírez for third, in the hopes of making it a Paladini Racing 1-2-3.

That hope ended on lap 18 when Yannantuoni made contact with Ramírez when trying to muscle through at the first corner, braking his left-rear suspension and sending his Lynk & Co spearing onto the grass and out of the race, also bringing out the safety car to recover his vehicle.

Racing resumed with just three laps left to run. Balerini resisted his team-mate for two of those, but on the final lap Rosso got by on the start-finish straight, with Cardoso quickly following into second.

Balerini was then hit by Ramírez with half a lap to go, and made further contact with Leonel Pernía on the last lap, but Pernía got into the final podium place.

Rosso won ahead of Cardoso, who has yet to claim a win this season but maintains his 100% podium run.

Leonel Pernía continues to lead the drivers standings with his third-place finish, with 148 points ahead of Cardoso (134) and Rosso (93).

Balerini took the chequered flag in fourth, but was penalised by five seconds for a violation of the safety car restart procedure, dropping him to ninth.

Pezzini was thus fourth, ahead of Reis, Rasetto, Gianfratti, Chiriano, Balerini and Tiago Pernía. Ramírez’s contact with Balerini on the last lap earned him a one-place penalty, leaving him 12^th.

Race one result

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	44			Leonel PERNÍA	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	22	27:20.976	1:12.920	1
2	1			Pedro CARDOSO	PMO Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	22	0.331	1:13.088	4
3	33			Nelson PIQUET JR	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	22	1.033	1:12.895	2
4	85			Tiago PERNÍA	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	22	4.705	1:12.874	3
5	77			Raphael REIS	W2 Pro GP	CUPRA Leon VZ TCR	22	5.372	1:13.099	6
6	5			Fabián YANNANTUONI	Paladini Racing	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	22	5.591	1:13.475	5
7	113			Fabricio PEZZINI	W2 Pro GP	CUPRA Leon VZ TCR	22	13.789	1:13.452	8
8	3			Luis RAMÍREZ	PMO Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	22	19.984	1:13.438	7
9	66			Genaro RASETTO	PMO Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	22	21.727	1:13.641	11
10	16			Juan Ángel ROSSO	Paladini Racing	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	22	36.041	1:13.562	15
11	55			Mariano PERNÍA	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	22	42.801	1:13.652	10
12	95			Santino BALERINI	Paladini Racing	Toyota Corolla GRS TCR	22	44.265	1:13.752	9
13	88			Adrián CHIRIANO	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	22	47.352	1:14.707	12
14	19			Enzo GIANFRATTI	Porthack Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	22	56.200	1:14.182	13
15	23			María NIENKÖTTER	Cobra Racing	Toyota Corolla GRS TCR	22	1:04.595	1:14.930	14

Race two result

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	16			Juan Ángel ROSSO	Paladini Racing	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	23	31:32.629	1:14.367	4
2	1			Pedro CARDOSO	PMO Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	23	1.439	1:14.406	7
3	44			Leonel PERNÍA	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	23	6.026	1:14.408	10
4	113			Fabricio PEZZINI	W2 Pro GP	CUPRA Leon VZ TCR	23	7.461	1:14.184	2
5	77			Raphael REIS	W2 Pro GP	CUPRA Leon VZ TCR	23	7.628	1:14.326	5
6	66			Genaro RASETTO	PMO Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	23	7.666	1:14.676	12
7	19			Enzo GIANFRATTI	Porthack Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	23	7.783	1:15.630	14
8	88			Adrián CHIRIANO	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	23	8.086	1:16.375	13
9	95			Santino BALERINI	Paladini Racing	Toyota Corolla GRS TCR	23	12.341	1:14.553	1
10	85			Tiago PERNÍA	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	23	13.570	1:14.211	8
11	23			María NIENKÖTTER	Cobra Racing	Toyota Corolla GRS TCR	22	+ 1 LAP	1:16.431	15
12	3			Luis RAMÍREZ	PMO Racing	Peugeot 308 TCR	22	+ 1 LAP	1:14.191	3
13	5			Fabián YANNANTUONI	Paladini Racing	Lynk & Co 03 TCR	18	+ 5 LAPS	1:14.184	6
R	55			Mariano PERNÍA	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR	8	DNF	1:14.518	11
R	33			Nelson PIQUET JR	Honda YPF Racing	Honda Civic Type-R FL5 TCR	4	DNF	1:12.884	9