Josh Files leads Target Competition 1-2 in Austria
Josh Files led home Target Competition team-mate Andrea Belicchi to win the first race at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria. The Brit took the lead at Turn 2 with a clean and yet spectacular move and never looked back. Honda Team ADAC’s Dominik Fugel completed an all-Honda podium.
At the start, pole-sitter Steve Kirsch initially retained the lead ahead of team-mate Fugel, who attacked his team-mate and passed, but Files soon crossed lines with the duo at the second corner and overtook them both. It took just a few corners for Kirsch to take second place back, followed by Belicchi as Fugel slipped to sixth.
The pole-sitter then put Files under pressure, but was also under attack from Belicchi. A technical problem on the sixth lap for Kirsch surely robbed the race of an entertaining fight, as the top three were very close up to that point. With the top positions now settled, it was Bas Koeten Racing’s Bas Schouten who provided the show, as the Dutchman fought hard to get back in the points-scoring places after a difficult qualifying session.
As the tyres began to fade there were some offs, with Antti Buri going straight at Turn 4 in his SEAT, retiring soon after in the pits, and Benjamin Leuchter locking his wheels at Turn 3, escaping from the gravel trap but losing several places. A crash for Pascal Eberle triggered a safety car period as the marshals recovered his SEAT at the last corner with 10 minutes to go. Seconds before the crash Mario Dablander and Nicklas Mackshin had been awarded a black and white flag.
When the race restarted there were just three minutes to go, meaning the drivers could only do two laps before the race finished. As Files and Belicchi got a good start and went on to open a bit of a gap, Harald Proczyk tried an attack on Jürgen Schmarl for third. The SEAT driver managed to overtake the Target Competition Honda, but Fugel took advantage of the situation and jumped past the pair of them to third, with Proczyk fourth ahead of Schmarl. The Honda driver however then managed to get back to fourth just a few corners later.
Files won the race ahead of Belicchi, while Fugel and Schmarl made it a Honda 1-2-3-4. Proczyk went no further than fifth, with Benjamin Leucther sixth in the highest-placed Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR. Ronny Jost finished seventh ahead of fellow SEAT driver Mike Halder. Tim Zimmermann and Bas Schouten completed the top ten.
Files now extends his lead in the championship to 23 points from Proczyk, as Kirsch pays the price of his DNF and is now 56 points shy of the lead.
Next up for TCR Germany is Race 2 at 10:40 local time.
