TCR / 22 July 2024

Guerrieri gives Civic Type R TCR first World Tour win of 2024

A magnificent performance from Esteban Guerrieri at Interlagos gave the Honda Civic Type R TCR its first TCR World Tour win of 2024 in Brazil.

With his team-mate Marco Butti on the podium and Ignacio Montenegro triumphing in Portugal, the weekend also proved successful for members of the JAS Motorsport Driver Development Programme.

 

TCR World Tour

After qualifying second, GOAT Racing driver Esteban Guerrieri stormed into the lead at the start of Race One at Interlagos and was never headed afterwards.

A strong opening couple of laps in Race Two brought him up from ninth to fourth, which was where he finished. Those results promoted him to second in the points and significantly reduced the gap to the series leader.

JAS Development Driver Marco Butti shadowed team-mate Guerrieri all weekend. He qualified fourth and finished third in Race One; adding sixth later on.

Dusan Borkovic, driving the third GOAT Civic, topped the opening phase of qualifying but could not improve in Q2 and started 11th. He converted that into ninth in Race One.

 

TCR South America/TCR Brasil

Running within the World Tour races at Interlagos were both the continental and national series. Debutant Nelson Piquet Jr was a strong second in Race One but retired later on after early contact punctured a front tyre and caused further damage.

His Squadra Martino team-mate Enrique Maglione recovered from a high-speed accident just after taking Trophy class pole on Saturday to score a category victory in Race Two with team-mate Fabio Casagrande third.

Both retired early in Race One with technical issues while Juan Manuel Casella, who was fired into the wall by a rival in Race Two, was seventh.

 

TCR Spain

ALM Motorsport's Ignacio Montenegro moved to within a handful of points of the series lead with a commanding victory in the first of two races at Estoril, Portugal.

Montenegro took advantage when team-mate and fellow JAS Development Driver Levente Losonczy - who had been leading - made an error as the safety car headed for the pits after an early few laps on track.

He was never headed after that while Losonczy rebounded to eighth spot - one place behind Sven Karuse in the third ALM car.

From ninth on Race Two's partially-reversed grid, Montenegro rose to ninth by the flag. Karuse was eighth while a technical issue put Losonczy out.

 

GT World Challenge America

Racers Edge Motorsports duo Luca Mars and Zach Veach enjoyed their best weekend of the season as they qualified and finished third in the Pro category in both races at Virginia International Raceway.

They did it very differently on each day. On Saturday Veach took advantage of the fifth safety car period to make a round-the-outside move pay off late on.

On Sunday he spun to the tail of the field, but a safety car allowed Mars to close in and add a second podium for the NSX GT3 Evo 22 pair.

 

Sports Car Championship Canada

Tom Kwok's best-ever qualifying performance put the returning M&S Racing driver's Civic Type R TCR second in TCR on the series' annual trip to the streets of Toronto.

But a bad start on Saturday and contact 24 hours later meant he was always running lower down the order.

His best result was fifth in Race One - just ahead of team-mate Jonathan Young. His brother Gary was third and sixth; results that dropped him out of the series lead.