Paul Jouffreau expressed his happiness on how his debut EuroNASCAR 2 season went as the Frenchman revealed his favorite track of this year’s calendar and the key point that he will need to improve for 2023.
The talented 19-year old French driver Paul Jouffreau is proud of what he had achieved on his first season in the EuroNASCAR 2 division, in which he competed full-time behind the wheel of SpeedHouse’s No. 33 Ford Mustang.
Jouffreau, who stepped up from EuroNASCAR’s regularity-based Club Challenge division, scored six Top-10 finishes and a podium finish in the sixth race of the season at Vallelunga on his way to finish ninth in the standings.
“I’m really proud of what I’ve done this season!” said Jouffreau on his performance this year. “I didn’t have any practice session this year in between all the races, so when you see that most of the drivers were practicing on the track weeks before the race and that before Zolder I was P5 in the championship, I’m really proud of the season.”
Jouffreau’s debut EuroNASCAR 2 campaign didn’t exactly go smoothly, however, as a string of problems in the final two rounds at Zolder and Rijeka meant that he lost plenty of points in the closing stages of the season.
As mentioned by Jouffreau, he was fifth in the standings when the series visited Zolder for the final round of the regular season. Unfortunately his last four races of the season resulted in one DNF and three finishes outside of the Top-10. With only 93 points scored from the races at Zolder and Rijeka, it meant that Jouffreau was only able to secure ninth place in the final standings.
“At Zolder, we had a big crash on the Saturday race and on Sunday’s race, I had a mechanical failure which made me DNF,” said Jouffreau on the problems he faced in the final two rounds of the season. “In Grobnik, the car wasn’t okay at all. In every session the car was at its worst and we had to change the engine on Saturday night because we found some water in the cylinder.”
“Throughout Saturday I was missing like 20 km/h in the straight, so I was only able to finish 17th with maximum attack. On Sunday the car was great. I was doing a good race and then I had a puncture… So I was forced to pit and I lost 1 lap as a result.”
Jouffreau’s debut season saw him visit six different tracks, each of which presented a different challenge and atmosphere to the teams and drivers. Jouffreau considered Brands Hatch, a track that he didn’t visit last year, to be the track that gave him the biggest impression.
“Brands Hatch definitely gave me the biggest feelings, this rollercoaster is just an amazing track to drive! It goes up and down at every corner and this was amazing,” said Jouffreau on Brands Hatch.
Jouffreau confirms that he will be staying with the SpeedHouse team next year as he spoke about what key point that he needs to improve for the 2023 season, which will start with the exhibition Arctic Ice Race on 4-5 March at Rovaniemi before the championship rounds started at Valencia on 6-7 May.
I’ll stay in EuroNASCAR with SpeedHouse for next year and my objectives are quite big!” said Jouffreau on his 2023 plans. “For next year I have to work a lot on the end of a braking zone, this is the key point to get the exit angle sooner and be able to go flat out sooner.”
Disclaimer: Unless noted on the photo, all photos used in this article are courtesy of NASCAR Whelen Euro Series / Bart Dehaese / Klemen Sofric.