Salzburg TCR: Grachev wins from ninth amid total chaos

Ninth on the grid, Grachev steered clear of the Turn 1 pile-up and then put himself in position to profit from technical issues for the Oriola brothers out front.

Despite the Leopard Volkswagen Golf's obvious straightline speed deficit at Salzburgring, it was Jean-Karl Vernay on pole, having finished runner-up in a wet Q2 and then profiting from a penalty for Harald Proczyk.

And the Frenchman got as good a start as he needed off the line, holding on to the lead into Turn 1, only for the SEAT of Pepe Oriola to coast by him on the back straight.

Meanwhile, there was mayhem behind as Jordi Oriola tried to go round the outside of WestCoast teammate Gianni Morbidelli into Turn 1, with the latter spinning almost in tandem with another WestCoast driver Proczyk, who was tapped out of control and caused a brief logjam in the corner.

With Pepe Oriola pulling away ahead, his brother Jordi also passed Vernay in virtually no time - and Grachev followed suit shortly thereafter.

And it was then that B3 Racing driver Dusan Borkovic produced the most spectacular move of the race, losing his car under braking into Turn 1, only to spin into the corner and pass both Grachev and Vernay.

Grachev crucially retook the spot on the back straight, as the safety car was then called in for a mechanical failure on Jordi Oriola's car, the exhaust on his Honda spitting out flames.

At the restart, Pepe Oriola quickly started to pull away from Grachev, only for a technical problem to rule him out of contention with four laps to go.

Now in prime position to win, Grachev came under pressure from Borkovic, the Serbian following right behind the Russian until the very last lap.

However, Borkovic was slowed behind the Honda and instead fell into the clutches of James Nash, the duo running side by side on the back straight and making contact at a high speed, with Borkovic picking up a puncture and ending up in the gravel.

Nash held on to second behind Grachev, with Borkovic's teammate Mat'o Homola benefitting to take third.

It was fourth for a recovering Morbidelli and fifth for Vernay, who had spent the entire race tumbling down the order.

Attila Tassi took sixth, ahead of David Kajaia and Stefano Comini, the reigning TCR champion involved in a number of heated battles due to the Leopard's car straghtline speed struggles.

Newcomer Florian Janits and Michela Cerruti completed the top 10.