After more than a year away from EuroNASCAR, Tobias Dauenhauer completes his return in the American SpeedFest 10 at Brands Hatch and is eager to compete in future rounds with Bremotion.
Tobias Dauenhauer made his return to the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series championship on the American SpeedFest 10, Powered by Lucas Oil. After financial problems forced the German to sit out most of the 2022 season, the two-time EuroNASCAR 2 runner-up completed his comeback at Brands Hatch with a brand new team in Bremotion.
After completing a private test at Circuit Zolder, Dauenhauer and Bremotion made their first official laps in the Friday Practice sessions. Despite a year away from the EuroNASCAR stock cars, Dauenhauer hasn’t lost his edge as he immediately finished in the top-5 on his first EuroNASCAR session since May 2022.
With Dauenhauer not participating in the season opening round at Valencia, he was entered into the first group of Saturday’s Qualifying session. Despite the drawbacks of being in Group 1, Dauenhauer was able to lap the 1.938 km Indy Circuit in just 48.979 seconds and he pulled to the pits to conserve his tires.
Thinking that he had done enough to advance to the Superpole session, Dauenhauer’s plan backfired when The Club Motorsport’s Fabrizio Armetta beat him on Armetta’s last flying lap.
A difference of 0.07 seconds is all it takes for Armetta to make it to the top-10 shootout while Dauenhauer had to make do with an 11th place starting position for Race 1.
“Unfortunately, the Qualifying wasn’t good for us,” admits Dauenhauer to Andre Wiegold after Race 1. “We gambled a bit and we didn’t reach the Superpole. I only did a minimum of laps because I wanted to have good tires for the Superpole, but I was too slow by a thousand of seconds.”
The race that was held later that afternoon brought better fortunes for the young German driver. After getting some positions early on following Vladimiros Tziortzis’ first-lap throttle issue and getting past Armetta later in the race, Dauenhauer finished seventh and secured a spot in the podium of the Junior Trophy.
Sadly, things didn’t go to plan for him on Sunday. Starting from sixth, his first sign of trouble came on lap 7 when the officials announced that he received a five-second time penalty for start procedure infringements.
This wouldn’t be too much of an issue if there’s a long green flag period, but a late Safety Car period caused by Max Lanza’s flip at Paddock Hill Bend bunched the field back up for a five-lap shootout to the checkered flag.
Dauenhauer held his ground on the restart, but on the last lap he pushed Giorgio Maggi off to the grass when he made an overtake on the Swiss driver at the fast left-hand Surtees kink.
Dauenhauer finished seventh on the line, but the start penalty and a further 30-second time penalty from the contact with Maggi dropped him to 18th in the final results.
As a result, Dauenhauer exited Brands Hatch in 23rd place on the overall standings with 49 points. Despite the issues on Sunday, the German driver is pleased to be back in the championship and is eager to compete in next month’s NASCAR GP Italy at Vallelunga.
“Unfortunately, in the second race we didn’t have racing luck on our side and it came one thing after another,” said Dauenhauer on his official post-race release. “Nevertheless, I’m very satisfied with my comeback with a new team in the NASCAR European Championship.”
“We were able to keep up with the top times on the first race weekend, took third place in the Junior classification and my team was able to gain important experience. I’m already looking forward to the next race and can’t wait any longer!”
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