Franco Girolami scored his ninth career win the the TCR Europe series with a brilliant display in Race 1 at Brno, leading from start to finish in his CUPRA Leon VZ TCR run by the Monlau Motorsport team, and extends his lead in the drivers’ championship to eight points over rival Aurélien Comte, who finished right behind him in second place.

Girolami had a good start and moved straight to the inside to cover off Comte, while behind Mat’o Homola, the best-placed of the TCR Eastern Europe guest contingent, managed to get down the inside of Viktor Andersson’s Lynk & Co and move up to third.

ALM Motorsport’s Ignacio Montenegro had started making good progress, and was up to fifth from seventh on the grid, passing the Aditis Racing Audi of Martin Kadlečík, before Kadlečík came back at him around the outside of Turn 4, but Montenegro managed to dive back past him at Turn 5.

A lap later and Kadlečík and his team-mate Bartosz Groszek swapped positions for fifth, and the Polish driver then tried his hand at passing the Argentine driver.

Groszek attempted to dive around Montenegro at Turn 3 on lap three but ran wide, allowing team-mate Kadlečík back through. Kadlečík then made a daring lunge down the inside at Turn 11 later on that lap and took fifth back from Montenegro, with Groszek following him through at the final corner to take sixth, with Montenegro dropping even further as he struggled for grip.

The Argentinian driver would go on to finish the race in eighth position, but would win in the rookie’s classification which also ensured the 19-year-old has sealed the rookies’ title with nine victories and three races remaining.

Up front, Girolami was able to control the pace ahead of Comte and Homola, while Andersson in fourth came under threat in the closing stages by Kadlečík’s Audi, but was able to hold on to fourth overall, and third in the TCR Europe classification.

The main drama late in the race came when Viktor Davidovski, closing on the ailing Honda of Montenegro, was pushed into a spin by the rival CUPRA of Giovanni Scamardi on lap nine, but he was able to rejoin before a safety car was needed, though he dropped to the rear of the field.

The second race of the weekend starts at 10:35 CEST tomorrow, with ALM Motorsport’s Levente Losonczy starting on pole position ahead of wild card TCR Europe entry Bartosz Groszek.