Get to Know the Drivers Participating in the 2020 NWES Drivers Recruitment Program’s February Test Day

Due to the extremely high demand with this year’s Drivers Recruitment Program, NASCAR Whelen Euro Series will be hosting a third edition of the 2020 Drivers Recruitment Program at NWES’ official test track Circuit de Fontenay-Le-Comte today. A total of 13 drivers from across the globe will take part in the February Test Day sessions for an opportunity to earn financial aid that will allow the chosen drivers to compete in the 2020 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series season.

After we made an article to help fans know the 12 drivers that participated in the November Test Days as well as two separate articles to introduce the 22 drivers that took part in the December Test Days, we will give you a short rundown on the profiles for the 13 drivers that are scheduled to take part in the February Test Day session.

Igor Idze Stefanovski

Date of Birth: 27 December 1982
Birth Place: Skopje, Macedonia

A former two-time European Hill Climb Champion, Macedonian driver Igor Idze Stefanovski made his circuit racing debut in 2018 when he took part in the TCR Europe Series with LPR Stefanovski Racing Team, scoring a finish in the points-paying position his debut before returning to hill climb racing the following year.

Whilst Stefanovski still plans to compete in hill climb racing in the newly formed TCR Hill Climb Series, Stefanovski will be testing the EuroNASCAR stock cars with his participation in the Drivers Recruitment Program today as the first Macedonian to participate in an official NASCAR test session.  

Kris Richard

Date of Birth: 20 November 1994
Birth Place: Bern, Switzerland

A standout touring car star who won the 2016 European Touring Car Cup title in his debut season, Kris Richard made his debut in the world stage when made a guest appearance in the WTCC rounds at Motegi and Losail in 2017 as a replacement driver for Esteban Guerrieri at Campos. A successful campaign in the TCR Europe Series would follow before he made the jump to Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup in 2019. Today’s Test Day at Fontenay will serve as a platform for Richard to expand his racing resume as he looks to secure himself a seat in Europe’s premier stock car racing series in 2020.

Prabu Sendogan

Date of Birth:
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Unfortunately, there is no known archive record of Prabu Sendogan’s previous racing exploits, so we can’t give a short profile on Sendogan as he is scheduled to test the NWES cars for the first time in this week’s Drivers Recruitment Program Test Day.

Alessandro “Alex” Ciompi

Date of Birth: 16 June 1985
Birth Place: Massa Marittima, Italy

Just like the November and December Test Days, there will be one driver that already has a racing experience in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series and for the February Test Days, that role fell to Alessandro “Alex” Ciompi. A former standout in Formula 3 Italy, Ciompi made his stock car racing debut in 2008 when he made a one-off appearance on that year’s ARCA East race at Lime Rock before making several race starts in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series in 2017 and 2018 for Racers Motorsport and CAAL Racing. Today’s Test Day will serve as Ciompi’s return to EuroNASCAR after his last appearance in the series at Franciacorta in 2018 where he scored a Top 10 finish in his last race to date.

Alberto di Folco

Date of Birth: 21 March 1996
Birth Place: Rome, Italy

A highly successful Lamborghini young talent, Alberto di Folco first achieved success when he won Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe’s Pro-Am championship in 2014 before finishing third overall in the 2015 Super Trofeo championship. Further successes came later on to di Folco in the form of podium finishes in Blancpain GT Series Asia and International GT Open, as well as a 2^nd place finish in the Am Cup of the 2018 24 Hours of Spa. Today’s Test Day will serve as di Folco’s first non-sports car racing outing since 2013 when he partaken in the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC championship. 

Álex Cosin

Date of Birth: 6 December 1988
Birth Place: Barcelona, Spain

Another touring car star scheduled to made their EuroNASCAR debut in the Drivers Recruitment Program this year, Álex Cosin – alongside co-driver Gianluigi Vicinanza – had a highly successful outing in the 2018 Trofeo de Espana TCR season, where they finished 2^nd in the championship after scoring three podium finishes and two pole positions that year. Both Cosin and Vicinanza returned to the series the following year where they once again scored three podium finishes that year on their way to finish 5^th in the championship. Like many of the drivers that were taking part in the 2020 Drivers Recruitment Program, Cosin’s outing today will mark his first laps in an EuroNASCAR stock car.

Tim Gril

Date of Birth:
Birth Place: Maribor, Slovenia

Little is known about Tim Gril’s previous racing exploits, although it is known that he previously competed in various hill climb championships in home country of Slovenia with his Fiat Seicento. Gril will be using the opportunity to test the EuroNASCAR stock cars today as a platform to potentially made a jump to circuit racing.

Kelvin Snoeks

Date of Birth: 12 September 1987
Birth Place: Haarlem, Netherlands

Kelvin Snoeks has enjoyed successes in various sports car racing categories on his racing career so far, with his best year came in 2015 when he won the Supercar Challenge in the Super GT class as well as finishing third in the Pro-Am class of Lamborghini Super Trofeo’s World Final. He competed in the ADAC GT Masters last year with Zakspeed and while he and his team struggled for the majority of the season, he enjoyed a breakthrough race on the final round at Sachsenring when he scored a 3^rd place podium in the first race of the week. Snoeks’s participation in the Drivers Recruitment Program will be his first outing in an EuroNASCAR stock car as he potentially looks to try and emulate the feat scored by his countryman Loris Hezemans, who won the championship title in the series last year.

Jack Ruffini

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Unfortunately, just like Prabu Sendogan, there is no known archive record of Jack Ruffini’s previous racing exploits, so we can’t give a short profile on Ruffini as he is scheduled to test the NWES cars for the first time in this week’s Drivers Recruitment Program Test Day.

Yaroslav Kryshchuk

Date of Birth:
Birth Place: Lutsk, Ukraine

Little is known about Yaroslav Kryshchuk’s previous racing exploits, but it is known that he is a Ukrainian driver that competed in various hillclimb and rallycross championship as well as the Ukrainian Track Race Championship, Ukraine’s oval dirt track racing championship. Kryshchuk’s EuroNASCAR test today would made him the second Ukrainian driver to test out the EuroNASCAR stock cars after Igor Romanov tested it in the December Test Days.

Dominik Kocher

Date of Birth: 11 October 1991
Birth Place: Locarno, Swiss

Dominik Kocher’s achieved relative success in the German Formula Three Championship in 2012 where he finished third in the Trophy classifications, but little information of his racing career is known after he left German F3 at the end of the 2012 season. Interestingly, he raced alongside two-time Euro Series champion Alon Day during his stay in German F3, so he can potentially be able to meet again with a familiar face if he is to be chosen as one of the winners of Drivers Recruitment Program’s scholarship rewards, which rewards the winners with financial aid to help them secure a seat in the grid for 2020.

Christian Ebong

Date of Birth: 9 June 1983
Birth Place: Cameroon

The self-proclaimed “first African race driver”, Christian Ebong will become the first Cameroonian driver to test a EuroNASCAR stock car with his participation in the Drivers Recruitment Program today. Having emigrated from Cameroon to France at the age of 13 to pursue his racing career, Ebong has participated in various sports car and rallycross championships across Europe. He showed interest to NASCAR after Rick Ware Racing invited him as a guest for the team during the 2018 Ford Ecoboost 400 and today, he will be hitting the track as one of the 13 drivers that will be receiving an opportunity to test the EuroNASCAR stock cars today at Fontenay.

Mateo Ginisty

Date of Birth:
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Unfortunately, just like with Prabu Sendogan and Jack Ruffini, there is no known archive record of Mateo Ginisty’s previous racing exploits, so we can’t give a short profile on Ginisty as he is scheduled to test the NWES cars for the first time in this week’s Drivers Recruitment Program Test Day.

Disclaimer: All photos used in this article are courtesy of the respective sources.