Dusan Borkovic won the first race of the 2018 TCR Europe series behind the wheel of his Hyundai i30 N TCR, despite pressure from stable-mate Daniel Nagy. The Serbian made no mistakes and won the race, with Mikel Azcona completing the podium in his Cupra.

At the start, pole-sitter Borkovic retained the lead into the first corner as Nagy took second away from Azcona. Meanwhile Francisco Mora spun out in his M1RA Hyundai before Turn 1.

The top three immediately started to open a gap, as Stian Paulsen defended fourth in his Cupra from the attacks of Honda’s Josh Files. The fight between the two, who had initially run away from the rest of the pack, allowed the Team WRT Audi of Jean-Karl Vernay and Hyundai trio of Kris Richard, Reece Barr and Igor Stefanovski to close the gap. However, it was not until the fifth lap, when Paulsen ran wide in the third sector, that the Brit went through to fourth.

From then on an entertaining fight started between the rest of the drivers, as Vernay looked to be struggling in his RS 3 LMS. The Frenchman slid wide while defending from Richard, who went through and started chasing Files, triggering an even more entertaining fight.

With two laps to go, a spectacular contact between the Hyundai and the Honda ended up with Files managing to take a few tenths of margin, after which disaster struck Target Competition as team-mates Richard and Barr collided, with the former spinning and losing several places, dropping down to 12th. Paulsen tried to make the most out of it and went up to fifth, only to be tapped by Vernay at the last corner and lose places down to eighth. The Frenchman, who is still under investigation for the contact, didn’t seem to have intentionally tapped the Dane.

The fight was so intense that in the closing stages ninth-placed Jens Reno Møller and Nicola Baldan, who has been right behind him for the entire race, had managed to close a four-seconds gap in just over one lap.

The top three were untouched by the fights, with Borkovic winning relatively comfortably ahead of stable-mate Nagy and Cupra’s Azcona. Files managed a good fourth ahead of Reece Barr and Vernay. Igor Stefanovski finished seventh ahead of Stian Paulsen, with Reno Møller and Nicola Baldan completing the top ten.