Dylan Pereira has claimed his third Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup career victory after stealing the lead on the second lap before going on to dominant a one-horse race at the Red Bull Ring.
After claiming his maiden series win last weekend at the Austrian venue, Jaxon Evans found himself mired down in the lower reaches of the top-10 at the green flag, eventually wrestling his way to fifth at the end of a disappointing race where he struggled to unlock the performance from last weekend and challenge the leaders.
The young Kiwi also has a potential post-race penalty hovering over his head after pulling off a forceful overtake on Marvin Klein in the opening stages.
Evans lined up down in eighth after the championship leader had a uncharacteristically difficult qualifying session which was postponed to Sunday morning following the previous day’s washout.
Pole-sitter Ayhancan Guven got a strong start to hold position on the run out of Turn 1. But it was the sister BWT Lechner Racing machine of Pereira who got the best launch off the front runners to leapfrog himself into second.
Last week’s season-opener proved overtaking around the 4.3km circuit was exceptionally difficult, however, on the second tour Pereira went on the charge to muscle his way ahead of Guven at Turn 4, dropping two wheels on the grass in the process.
Further back, Evans was another man on a mission and after picking off two spots on the opening lap the Kiwi made a daring move on German pilot Klein at Turn 7.
The forceful move would earn Evans a post-race investigation, but he maintained fifth position on the track and set his sights on the leading quartet.
However, Pereira quickly found his grove and on lap 8 set a scintillating fastest lap time to drive away from the challenging pack, building a two-second margin at half-race distance.
The gap at the line would be 3.7s as BWT Lechner Racing claimed their second successive victory to open up a strong 2020 campaign.
Having sat in third for all of the 17-lapper, Larry ten Voorde put up a late-race challenge on Guven but would follow the Turkish racer across the line six-tenths behind his rival to round off the podium.
The Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup returns to action on July 19 at the Hungaroring for round three of the championship.
