Under the circuit’s spotlights, the Spaniard stroked to a lights-to-flag evening race victory from pole position as BRC Hyundai team-mate Norbert Michelisz rose from fourth on the grid to ride shotgun and deliver a 1-2 for the South Korean manufacturer.
The victory means Azcona now holds a commanding 53-point lead over Munnich Motorsport Honda driver Nestor Girolami, who was classified fourth. Nathanael Berthon beat him to the podium in his Comtoyou Audi, despite making a disastrous start from the front row.
“It was easy enough,” admitted Azcona. “I made a very good start, that was the key of the race. I was a bit afraid of Berthon because we had seen in the previous races the Audis are quick and strong, fast in the straight. But very quickly I saw he was in some kind of problem so there was free space for me, so from this point it was just to see what the conditions were like in the night.”
“I was very happy with my car,” said Michelisz. “In qualifying it was flawless which is one of the very rare occasions. As a driver you feel 100% in control and I’m very happy because it was steady progress. But more importantly I am very happy for the team and for Mikel. He deserved the race win.”
Berthon recovered quickly from his poor start and was back up to fourth by the end of lap one. He closed in on Girolami, who was struggling for pace in a Honda carrying 40kg of compensation weight.
“Big mistake, it was my worst start of the year,” said Berthon. “I had a vibration which was appalling so I had to manage that. A lot of points lost. I would have loved to fight with Mikel. Congrats to him, no mistakes at all. We have to fight and come back stronger. We need to find some performance to come back at him.”
Tom Coronel further demoted Girolami on the road, but the Dutch Audi driver dropped to sixth because of a five-second penalty for nerfing Attila Tassi’s Engstler Honda off at the Turn 10 hairpin.
Nicky Catsburg scored an eventful fifth on his return to the WTCR for his first start in the series since 2020. Franco Girolami, younger brother of Nestor, pushed him into a spin at Turn 8 on lap one in an incident that also left Gilles Magnus’s Audi with heavy front-right damage.
Catsburg subsequently charged back up the order, pulling strong moves on Esteban Guerrieri and Mehdi Bennani to claim his hard-earned fifth.
Franco Girolami finished ninth on the road, but was relegated to the back of the field by a 10-second penalty for causing the first-lap collision.
The partially reversed-grid race two will take place in the heat of Saturday morning, with Bennani on pole position.
WTCR Bahrain - Race 1 results (15 laps)
| Cla | Driver | Chassis | Laps | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Mikel Azcona |
Hyundai | 15 | |
| 2 |  Norbert Michelisz |
Hyundai | 15 | 1.955 |
| 3 |  Nathanael Berthon |
15 | 3.443 | |
| 4 |  Nestor Girolami |
Honda | 15 | 9.193 |
| 5 |  Nick Catsburg |
Hyundai | 15 | 10.291 |
| 6 | Tom Coronel |
15 | 11.336 | |
| 7 |  Mehdi Bennani |
15 | 12.247 | |
| 8 | Esteban Guerrieri |
Honda | 15 | 14.605 |
| 9 | Attila Tassi |
Honda | 15 | 19.527 |
| 10 | Viktor Davidovski | 15 | 20.006 | |
| 11 | Daniel Nagy |
CUPRA | 15 | 20.503 |
| 12 |  Tiago Monteiro |
Honda | 15 | 26.817 |
| 13 | Bence Boldizs | CUPRA | 15 | 27.269 |
| 14 | Franco Girolami | 15 | 28.993 | |
 Gilles Magnus |
0 | 15 laps | ||
| View full results | ||||
