» WTCR: Back-to-back wins for Girolami

Néstor Girolami secured back-to-back victories in a frenetic rain-affected second FIA World Touring Car Cup race at the Hungaroring to join Münnich Motorsport Honda teammate Esteban Guerrieri at the top of the Drivers’ Championship standings.

With the track dampened by earlier rain but slowly drying, the field faced a tough tyre choice ahead of the start of the race. The frontrunners opted for dry-weather Yokohama tyres, while several towards the back of the grid gambled on wets.

The Argentine driver, who had won Saturday’s race from pole position in a lights-to-flag display, once again dominated proceedings after muscling his way into the race lead before the end of the opening lap.

With the fastest ten qualifiers’ grid positions reversed for this race, PWR Racing owner/driver Daniel Haglöf got the jump on the pole-sitting WRT Audi of Jean-Karl Vernay at the start and held the inside line into Turn 1, with Cyan Racing’s Thed Björk slotting his Lynk & Co into second place.

The Swedish 1-2 lasted for all of three corners as Girolami, who had started from sixth on the grid, forced his way past Björk at Turn 4 before setting off after Haglöf.

By Turn 12 he was in the lead and never looked back, leaving Haglöf to briefly defend second place from the recovering Vernay. The Frenchman claimed the spot from Haglöf’s Cupra at Turn 1 on the next lap.

The opening laps saw a multitude of incidents take place through the field, with SLR Volkswagen duo Johan Kristoffersson and Mehdi Bennani both early retirees due to contact, along with Tiago Monteiro (KCMG Honda) and Björk.

Once in the lead, Girolami steadily eased away before being reeled in by Vernay in the closing laps. Vernay pulled the gap to Girolami to within a second, before backing off on the final lap to secure second place. Haglöf rounded out the podium positions to claim his first rostrum finish of his WTCR career, with teammate Mikel Azcona claiming fourth place in his battle-scarred Cupra.

While neither Cupra driver had a particularly quick car during their race, their cause was helped by Augusto Farfus, who doggedly defended fifth place in an evil-handling BRC Racing Hyundai.

Heading the pack of chasing cars was the Cyan Performance Lynk & Co of Yann Ehrlacher, who was being hotly pursued by the BRC Racing Hyundais of Nicky Catsburg and Gabriele Tarquini.

On Lap 7, Catsburg made his move and dived up the inside of Ehrlacher into Turn 1. Tarquini tried to follow suit, but only succeeded in T-boning a furious Ehrlacher who was forced to retire for the second race in a row. With teammate Andy Priaulx also in the pit lane with broken steering, it was proving to be a bad race for the Lynk & Co brand.

A mistake from Catsburg at Turn 12 allowed Yvan Muller in the sole remaining Lynk & Co to snatch sixth, with the French veteran having picked his way through the midfield from fifteenth on the grid. Guerrieri and a battle-scarred Tarquini followed Muller through.

Muller briefly got ahead of the struggling Farfus to claim fifth place, but he was then passed by Guerrieri at Turn 2 to settle fifth and sixth places.

Seventh place went to SLR VW’s Rob Huff, who benefited from his rivals’ poor driving to claim his best finish of the season to-date. He finished ahead of Attila Tassi (KCMG Honda), who brought some cheer to the local fans after the late race retirement of Norbert Michelisz’s Hyundai who was hit by Aurélien Panis’ Comtoyou Cupra.

On fading tyres, Farfus held on to finish ninth ahead of Catsburg.

2019 FIA WTCR Race of Hungary – Race 2 Final Classification (12 laps)
	Driver	Team / Entry	Laps	Result	Pts
1.	Néstor Girolami	Münnich Motorsport	12	23:46.542	25
2.	Jean-Karl Vernay	Leopard Racing Team Audi Sport	12	+ 2.529	20
3.	Daniel Haglöf	PWR Racing	12	+ 3.507	16
4.	Mikel Azcona	PWR Racing	12	+ 5.260	13
5.	Esteban Guerrieri	Münnich Motorsport	12	+ 12.822	11
6.	Yvan Muller	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	12	+ 14.721	10
7.	Rob Huff	SLR VW Motorsport	12	+ 15.245	9
8.	Attila Tassi	KCMG	12	+ 15.766	8
9.	Augusto Farfus	BRC Hyundai N LUKOIL Racing Team	12	+ 18.979	7
10.	Nicky Catsburg	BRC Hyundai N LUKOIL Racing Team	12	+ 19.522	6
11.	Ma Qing Hua	Team Mulsanne	12	+ 19.751	5
12.	Benjamin Leuchter	SLR Volkswagen	12	+ 20.676	4
13.	Aurélien Panis	Comtoyou Team DHL Cupra Racing	12	+ 21.739	3
14.	Tom Coronel	Comtoyou Team DHL Cupra Racing	12	+ 24.699	2
15.	Frédéric Vervisch	Comtoyou Team Audi Sport	12	+ 25.086	1
16.	Kevin Ceccon	Team Mulsanne	12	+ 36.000
17.	Gabriele Tarquini	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	11	+ 1 lap
18.	Tamás Tenke (WC)	Zengő Motorsport	9	+ 3 laps
	Not Classified	Team / Entry	Laps	Reason
DNF.	Gordon Shedden	Leopard Racing Team Audi Sport	11	Spin
DNF.	Niels Langeveld	Comtoyou Team Audi Sport	11	Collision
DNF.	Norbert Michelisz	BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse	10	Collision
DNF.	Yann Ehrlacher	Cyan Performance Lynk & Co	8	Collision
DNF.	Andy Priaulx	Cyan Performance Lynk & Co	5	Steering
DNF.	Thed Björk	Cyan Racing Lynk & Co	4	Collision
DNF.	Mehdi Bennani	SLR VW Motorsport	3	Wheel
DNF.	Tiago Monteiro	KCMG	3	Collision
DNF.	Johan Kristoffersson	SLR Volkswagen	2	Collision

Championship Points:

The top fifteen classified finishers and their respective teams are awarded championship points on a 25-20-16-13-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 sliding scale.

Post-Race Penalties: