Vladimiros Tziortzis proved himself as the master of the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in EuroNASCAR 2 after he swept both Valencia NASCAR Fest races and took the championship lead in the junior division.
In the 2020 season, Vladimiros Tziortzis secured his first podium finish at Circuit Ricardo Tormo. Two years later in 2022, Tziortzis took home the first race win of his career at Valencia. Now in 2023, the Cypriot driver cemented his domination on the Spanish circuit after he swept the two Valencia NASCAR Fest EuroNASCAR races.
Tziortzis bested 2022 title rival Alberto Naska and RDV Competition’s Paul Jouffreau, who also swept the runner-up and third-place positions respectively. The cream of the crop might have risen to the top of both days, but there’s still plenty of action in the Saturday and Sunday races that we recapped below.
Race 1 Recap
Vladimiros Tziortzis, who had previously started the first EuroNASCAR PRO race on pole position, took the green flag at 5:34 PM local time to signify the start of the first EuroNASCAR 2 race of the season.
Moments before the race got underway, title rival Alberto Naska noted to series interviewer Andre Wiegold that Tziortzis has a history of bad starts and he wants to capitalize from it in the race. As if Tziortzis heard what Naska said, the Cypriot made a great start to lead the field of 22 cars into the first corner of the Circuit Ricardo Tormo circuit.
From then on, no one could touch Tziortzis as he quietly dominated and led all 15 laps in the No. 5 ENEOS FJ to score his second career victory in the sport. He bested Naska by 4.678 seconds and brought home the fastest lap award with a best lap time of 1:42.148.
“I think I did my best!” said Tziortzis when interviewed by Andre in the Victory Lane. We did our job like earlier this morning [in EuroNASCAR PRO], we kept pushing and stayed consistent to bring home the first place!”
“There was an issue with the start in EuroNASCAR PRO compared to this one, but anyway this is racing and I showed today that we’re here and still rising!”
Paul Jouffreau was able to translate the first front row start of his career into a third-place finish. Jouffreau, who switched to RDV Competition in the off-season, tied the best finish that he achieved in his career on just his first start with Franck Violas’ team.
Gil Linster found himself in the proverbial “No Man’s Land” with his fourth place finish, as he finished 8 seconds behind Jouffreau and 19.4 seconds ahead of teammate Doubek at the checkered flag. The action might be quiet for the first four finishers, but in true EuroNASCAR action there’s plenty of action all across the board.
Doubek’s fifth place finish itself has to be hard fought, as he traded positions with Double V Racing’s Patrick Schober multiple times. In what was described as the best battle of the day, the Czech and the Austrian driver put up a great show for the fans with their clean, yet action packed battles.
Finishing not far behind them is Riccardo Romagnoli, who took home the top Legend Trophy honor with an impressive 7th place finish. Romagnoli was able to witness Doubek and Schober’s amazing battle from the comfort of his cockpit, which is not an easy feat given that Legend runner-up Roberto Benedetti was only 2.5 seconds behind at the end of the race.
Rookie Trophy’s top-3 filled in the next positions with Thomas Dombrowski taking the top honors in the sub-classification for debutants in EN2. Thomas Toffel completes the top-10 in the No. 34 Toffel Immobilier Camaro, finishing comfortably ahead of Scotsman Jack Davidson in the No. 48 GTOmega Camaro despite a spin in lap 2 that was caused by Paolo Valeri.
Davidson had a very up-and-down race on his debut race in the sport. Having qualified fourteenth, he was able to move up to ninth place in the first few laps and was defending his position from Benedetti and Dario Caso when the latter punted him to the gravel trap at Benoit Martinez on lap 5.
Both drivers were able to rejoin the track, joining the pack battling for tenth when more chaos happened. Davidson’s teammate Nick Schneider spun out Valeri on lap 9 at Doohan, a corner that later saw Caso spinning out Kenko Miura in the following lap. In the end, the naughty boys were given time penalties for their shenanigans.
Arianna Casoli won the Lady Trophy by default with her 19th place finish, while countryman Claudio Remigio Cappelli was relegated to 21st position after he made a mistake in the penultimate lap that sent him to the gravel trap.
The driver of the No. 18 Cremona Gronde/Vidby Ford was able to rejoin the race, meaning that all 22 starters managed to finish the race.
Race 2 Recap
Sunny weather greeted the EuroNASCAR 2 drivers on Sunday morning as all 23 drivers took the green flag for the second race of the 2023 season at 10:49 AM.
Starting from last in Sunday’s race is Australia’s Max Mason, who had been forced to miss the race on Saturday due to the damage inflicted to the No. 58 Camaro following his crash with Michael Bleekemolen on Qualifying.
On Sunday, he got his chance to make his racing debut in EuroNASCAR thanks to the hard work done by Racingfuel Motorsport and Double V Racing mechanics, who repaired the car overnight. He would take the checkered flag in fourteenth place, completing a clean and mistake-less race in his debut race.
At the front of the pack, pole sitter Vladimiros Tziortzis once again made a great start to retain his lead on the run to the first corner. Despite Alberto Naska mounting up a challenge in the first half of the race and a Safety Car interruption, the Cypriot was untouchable as he once again led all 15 laps to sweep the EN2 races at Valencia.
“I’m excited and we finally got it done! We are fast, we are there, we are consistent and this is the main key for the rest of the season!” said the Cypriot driver in the Victory Lane.“Let’s see from the next round, there’s some news that we will announce soon!”
Naska would ultimately finish second once again, 4.669 seconds behind Tziortzis. Paul Jouffreau had been able to catch up to the Italian YouTube superstar in the latter stages of the race, but he ran out of laps to make a move and had to settle for his second third-place finish of the weekend.
The Safety Car period itself came as a result of multiple incidents that happened on the opening lap. Hendriks teammates Gil Linster and Martin Doubek touched on the run to Doohan corner, which put the former EN2 champion out of his rhythm as he outbraked himself and ran wide at Circuit Ricardo Tormo’s fourth corner Nico Terol.
Shortly after, the No. 88 Avangarde Group Camaro of Roberto Benedetti collided with the No. 8 Italicus Camaro of Paolo Valeri at Nico Terol. The impact sent Valeri backwards into the gravel trap and he was unable to rejoin the race, necessitating the marshalls to extricate the stricken Camaro out of the track.
Roberto Benedetti would ultimately finish 22nd as the last car still running in the race, having to make a visit to the pits as a result of the incident. A 30-second post-race time penalty was also awarded to the Italian for overspeeding in the pit lane.
Meanwhile, Linster finished fourth after finding himself in yet another “No Man’s Land” situation. He finished 12 seconds ahead of Patrick Schober, who secured his first career top-5 finish after a spectacular battle with Claudio Remigio Cappelli.
Despite losing out on a top-5 finish, Cappelli made it up by becoming the winner in the Legend Trophy sub-classifications. It was a back-to-back sub-classification winner in the overall results as Thomas Dombrowski in the No. 66 Team Bleekemolen Camaro took home top Rookie Trophy honors in seventh.
Dario Caso scored his first top-10 since 2017 with an eighth place finish, although it wasn’t a spotless race for the Vict Motorsport team owner. Caso once again made contact with Kenko Miura and he once again caused Miura to have a spin, an action that resulted in a 5-second time penalty being handed to Caso post-race.
Jack Davidson and Riccardo Romagnoli closed out the top-10 with Miura having to contend with an eleventh place finish. Doubek was only able to finish twelfth ahead of Nick Schneider, who did some rallycross action in his No. 46 Marko Stipp Motorsport. The German-born Brazilian driver revealed post-race that a stuck throttle pedal caused him to go off the course.
Mason and Michael Bleekemolen finished ahead of Sven van Laere and Arianna Casoli, who were separated by only 0.263 seconds after 15 laps of action. Eric Quintal, Nick Strickler, Matthias Hauer complete the top-20 ahead of Thomas Toffel, who got hit with three penalties.
He received his first penalty on lap 4, a 10-second time penalty for moving out of the start formation during the initial start. A drive-through penalty was then served on lap 5 because Toffel blatantly jumped the restart, making it three-wide before the midfield pack even crossed the start-finish line.
Having served the drive-through, he was handed another penalty at lap 10. This time, it’s a stop-and-go penalty caused by an avoidable contact with Schneider’s MSM Chevy. He was able to serve the penalty cleanly before the race was over, preventing the German driver from receiving a post-race time penalty for his troubles.
Vladimiros Tziortzis’ sweep in the two races at Valencia meant that he got the red Whelen windshield banner for becoming the championship leader in the EuroNASCAR 2 division. Alberto Naska, Paul Jouffreau, and Gil Linster’s own sweep of the top-4 position meant that they exited Valencia as the second, third, and fourth placed drivers in the standings respectively.
Patrick Schober was rewarded with a fifth spot in the championship standings after he completed his best race week in the sport. Thomas Dombrowski is sixth as the top Rookie Trophy driver ahead of Martin Doubek, who were tied in points with the top Legend Trophy driver Riccardo Romagnoli.
Jack Davidson is ninth ahead of Dario Caso, with rival Kenko Miura only one point behind the 60-year old Italian driver. Claudio Remigio Cappelli is only fourteenth after his spin in Race 1, while Arianna Casoli is locked in a four-way tie for 17th place in the standings.
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.