The beautiful Saturday weather with 30 degrees Centigrade was the mere echo of the past on Sunday morning. The first Sunday race at the Grobnik circuit was marked by heavy rain and the pilots of the ESET TCR series had to follow the safety car after start.
The pole-position was won in the time practice by Jáchym Galáš in front of Milovan Vesnic, and the second row was occupied by team mates of the Fullinrace Academy Petr Čížek and Carol Wittke. The peloton of the TCR passenger cars thus started the race after the safety car, but since the third lap the full battle began again. The wet road was ideal for Galáš of the GT2 Motorsport team, who drove his VW Golf around the circuit with machine accuracy, only threatened on his way towards the victory by the interim leader Milovan Vesnic in Seat. After a hesitant start, the Serbian pilot found his rhythm and slowly began to approach Galáš in the lead. Meanwhile Dušan Kouřil began to advance from the last starting row with his Hyundai i30 TCR, in the fifth lap already holding the fourth rank after Petr Čížek and in the ninth lap taking the bronze rank.
Vesnic meanwhile continued to reduce the advantage of Galáš, but he only advanced by tenths of a second at a time and the more the pilots approached the finish the better were the chances of Galáš for victory. He could only take a breath of relief two minutes before the finish, when Vesnic suffered a tyre defect on the starting straight and has to give up the race. The big piece of rubber left by him on the road was then hit by his team mate Jakub Wyszomirski in his Honda.
At that moment a heavy downpour began again and the pilots eventually finished the race following the safety car. Galáš scored his first victory in the season in front of the second-ranking Dušan Kouřil and the third ranking Petr Čížek, for whom these ranks represented their second podium ranks in the ESET TCR edition. Thus the podium was all occupied by Czech team colours.
The only domestic pilot in the starting field Zharko Knego in Seat Cupra was moving upwards in the raking, probably thanks to the wet road which he liked and his knowledge of the circuit. He finally ranked fifth after the fourth-ranking Carol Wittke.
Results
ESET TCR Race 1
