TCR / 09 September 2024

Montenegro claims latest title as Civic Type R TCR wins four times

JAS Motorsport Development Driver Ignacio Montenegro claimed the latest major title for the Honda Civic Type R TCR as it claimed four outstanding overall victories and a further five class wins across the weekend.

While Montenegro and the ALM Motorsport team did much of the winning, there were plenty of other outstanding performances for the Milan-built touring car, which has now won 95 championship crowns in its lifespan.

 

TCR Europe/TCR Eastern Europe

Montenegro claimed the Rookie Championship with a class win in the opening race and he increased his unbeaten run to 10 races 24 hours later.

On that occasion, however, he was beaten to the chequered flag by his ALM team-mate (and fellow JAS Development Driver) Levente Losonczy, who bagged his second win of the year.

Montenegro and Losonczy are third and fourth in the overall Drivers' points with one round to go while ALM head the Teams' Championship.

GOAT Racing's Felipe Fernandez took over the lead of the Diamond Trophy class with a double category win; the Spaniard finishing in the top 10 in each race, while MM Motorsport's Giacomo Ghermandi finished Race Two only.

The event was also a round of TCR Eastern Europe, whose cars ran within the TCR Europe field. Davit Kajaia placed fourth in the category both times while Mertel Motorsport team-mate Rene Kircher was fifth in Race One and Jorden Dolischka was third in the Junior category both times.

TCR Italy

There was joy for ALM in Italy too as Ruben Volt - who missed the trip to Brno to focus on his battle for the Italian title - claimed a vital win at Imola.

The Estonian qualified second, drove around the outside of the polesitter at the opening sequence of corners and was untroubled afterwards.

A controlled drive in Race Two took him from seventh to third; a result that leaves him second in the Drivers' Championship and leading the Under-25s class points.

MM Motorsport's Jacopo Cimenes won the Rookie class in both races with a pair of fourth-place finishes. His new team-mates Marco Pellegrini and Luciano Martinez scored best results of fifth in the Master class and fourth in Rookies respectively.

Volt's ALM team-mate Paolo Rocca was eliminated from contention on the first lap of both races through no fault of his own while RTM Motorsport's Antonio Citera was twice seventh in the Master category.

 

TCR China

Martin Xie dominated the weekend at Ningbo as he and the MacPro Racing Team launched themselves right back into title contention with a double victory.

Xie took his third pole position from four events this year and led the opening race from start to finish, but his Sunday drive was more impressive as he surged from eighth on the partially-reversed grid to snatch a late victory - his third of the season.

Team-mate David Deng was 11th in both races. Chun Leung Chan put Norris Racing in the top 10 in Race One while Siu Ming Man (Evolve Racing) scored a best finish of 12th in Race Two.

 

Super Taikyu

M&K Racing picked up where they left off as opening-round winners Shinji Nakano, Mitsuhiro Endo and Ryusuke Masumoto claimed pole position for the five-hour race at Motegi in the ST-TCR class.

Unfortunately, an alternator issue ended their race after an hour. The sister car of 'Kizuna', Lee Jeong Woo and Sena Yamamoto finished second - their hopes of victory dashed by a puncture. They do, however, lead the championship.