PMA Motorsport topped practice, but Gabriele Covini took the honours in qualifying

PMA Motorsport flattered to deceive after the team's two leading Audi RS 3 LMSs dominated testing and free practice, with both points leader Nicolas Taylor and his team-mate Nicola Baldan showing the way.

However in qualifying, Gabriele Covini first obliterated Baldan's all-time qualifying lap record in Q1 by over a second, before his Q2 lap was also enough to ensure the 20-year-old Italian secured his first career pole position in the series.

Junui Park made it an all-Hyundai front row, while Taylor was the best of the Audi contingent in third, with Mike Halder mixing the manufacturers at the front as he put his ALM Motorsport Honda on the outside of row two.

Covini leads, but then all hell breaks loose

Covini then made a good start, covering off Park’s Solite Indigo Racing Hyundai into the first turn.

Taylor held on to third, while the fast-starting Mikhail Simonov was already up to fourth by the end of the first lap and ahead of Mike Halder’s ALM Motorsport Honda.

Further down the order, Covini’s team-mate Alex Ley and the Herrero Racing CUPRA of Victor Weyrich made contact into Turn 1, with Weyrich developing a tyre rub which would eventually lead to a puncture and retirement.

The first puncture of the race though would affect Simonov’s SP CUPRA on lap four, just as he was going into Curva Alboreto.

This promoted the second PMA Audi of Nicola Baldan to fourth, who was being chased down by the charging Hyundai of Julien Briché, who was flying after starting down in 13th.

On lap seven, race leader Covini’s front-left suddenly let go on the way into Ascari, handing the lead to Park, with Taylor still right on his tail.

Baldan was now third, but not for long as soon Baldan and Briché were both out with their own tyre issues, which promoted Halder to third, with the German being attacked by the CUPRA of reigning TCR UK champion Adam Shepherd.

With two laps to go, Halder locked up at Turn 1 and went down the escape road, promoting Shepherd and his Monlau team-mate Marco Butti to third and fourth.

The hard battles meant they were over 12 seconds away from the leading pair, with Park under constant pressure from championship leader Taylor.

Moments later, it was Taylor’s turn, experiencing a front-left delamination, but due to the number of retirements he was still able to go on to finish in 14th position and pick up critical points in the championship.

Shepherd went on to finish in a career-best result of second, with Butti’s third place moving the Italian to just one point away from Taylor in the drivers’ standings.

In a topsy-turvy top ten, Alex Ley had initially recovered to finish fourth ahead of Ruben Volt’s Honda, with Viktor Andersson the third of the Monlau CUPRAs in sixth, however a post-race penalty for Ley for his incident with Weyrich dropped him to sixth behind Andersson.

Volt's fourth was a strong recovery after an early contact with the Hyundai of Junesung Park into the first corner. Junesung Park would be given a five-place penalty for the incident which drops him from third to eighth for tomorrow's race.

Raphael Fournier went from 17th to seventh in his JSB Compétition Hyundai, picking up his first points of the season, with two-time TCR UK champion Carl Boardley finishing in eighth place and scoring on his TCR Europe debut ahead of both of his ALM team-mates Mikael Karlsson and René Povlsen, with Karlsson picking up his third career Diamond Trophy victory.

Junui Park

Solite Indigo Racing

Race winner

My last win at Hungaroring was in Race 2, but this time I qualified in P2 and so it’s the first time I’ve won a Race 1, so I’m very happy. There were many punctures today, so I was managing my tyres. The team did a very good job with the car. It’s a great result, as next year I’ll stop racing as I have military service, and I want to thank Solite Indigo Racing team for these last five years.

Adam Shepherd

Monlau Motorsport

Second place

We had a tough qualifying, so we knew in comparison we were going to have a good race. I did the best launch I’ve done in a long while, and I tried to attack, lost a little bit of ground but then went forwards and the pace was really good. When we heard people we getting punctures, we thought, well we’re not in the championship fight so we’ll keep pushing, but then in the last few laps the radio messages were more: “slow down! slow down!”, It’s a great first podium, I’ve really enjoyed it.

Marco Butti

Monlau Motorsport

Thrid place

That was a really tough race. We weren’t really fighting much as we knew about the possible punctures, from here but also from last year in the TCR World Tour here at Monza. I was trying to drive in a way to look after the tyres as much as possible. I saw Halder and Taylor had punctures, and I know this could be a game-changer for the championship. We had our own bad luck in Paul Ricard, so we’re still recovering from that, and now we’re just one point behind, and tomorrow we start from pole.

Monza Race 1 result

1 - Junui Park - Solite Indigo Racing - Hyundai Elantra N EV TCR - 14 laps

2 - Adam Shepherd - Monlau Motorsport - CUPRA Leon VZ TCR - 16.859

3 - Marco Butti - Monlau Motorsport - CUPRA Leon VZ TCR - 18.781

4 - Ruben Volt - ALM Motorsport -Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR - 26.938

5 - Viktor Andersson - Monlau Motorsport - CUPRA Leon VZ TCR - 28.384

6 - Alex Ley - BRC Racing Team - Hyundai Elantra N EV TCR - 29.140

7 - Raphael Fournier - JSB Compétition - Hyundai Elantra N EV TCR - 29.914

8 - Carl Boardley - ALM Motorsport - Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR - 35.486

9 - Mikael Karlsson - ALM Motorsport - Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR - 35.867

10 - René Povlsen - ALM Motorsport - Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR - 44.826 ...