Vladimiros Tziortzis’ winning streak ended after Alberto Naska and Paul Jouffreau took their first wins of the season in the American Festival of Rome at Vallelunga.
Vladimiros Tziortzis’ streak of victories in EuroNASCAR 2 has ended after Alberto Naska and Paul Jouffreau visited the Victory Lane in the American Festival of Rome at Autodromo Vallelunga. Naska and Jouffreau’s victories allowed them to close the gap to the Cypriot in the standings.
Survival of the fittest was the name of the game as both races saw a high number of retirements that left huge ramifications for the rest of the weekend. It also saw stewards handing over two disqualifications in the same race, something that is unprecedented for NASCAR Whelen Euro Series. The recap of the races can be checked in the sections below.
Race 1 Recap
The first EuroNASCAR 2 race got underway just a few minutes after the clock hit 5 PM local time. Paul Jouffreau and home crowd’s favorite Alberto Naska led the field to the green flag and they remained side by side entering Curva Grande, but a timely bump draft from Gil Linster allowed Naska to take the lead by Cimini.
Naska soon opened an advantage of 2 seconds to Jouffreau and remained in the lead for the entirety of the 15-lap race. A gap of 1.902 second was to be the winning gap for Naska as he celebrated his first win of the year. Naska would later describe the victory as “the best day in my life.”
“I don’t know what to say!” said Naska, visibly exhausted in the Victory Lane. “I had to take off my shoes here because my feet were burning and the pedals were at a hundred degrees.”
“They told me not to overdrive the car at the beginning, so I found the pace and apparently it was the fastest pace of the race! So, finally I learned what they meant with ‘don’t push to go faster’!”
While Jouffreau lost, he kept himself in touch as he was able to stay within the 2 second gap that Naska had created in the opening few laps. Both Naska and Jouffreau enjoyed a quiet race at the front, but the same can’t be said for the drivers battling for third place.
Gil Linster had been in third for most of the race, but Vladimiros Tziortzis caught up to the Luxembourger after he was shuffled all the way down to ninth in the first lap. Tziortzis’ pace was much faster than Linster, but the Hendriks Motorsport driver fought really hard to retain his position.
On the final lap, Tziortzis braked too late into the Sorrate corner and tapped into the rear end of Linster’s Toyota. The move allowed Tziortzis to get third on the line, but the stewards weren’t happy with it and demoted Tziortzis post-race, putting Linster on the podium for the first time in 2023.
If EuroNASCAR was to have a “Driver of the Day” award, Patrick Schober would have a strong case for it courtesy of his Saturday performance. Teammate Stefano Attianese had crashed the No. 27 Double V Racing Ford in the preceding ENPRO race and Double V mechanics had to work hard to get the car ready for Schober’s turn.
Thankfully, the mechanics were able to get the repair work finished just in time. He did have to start from the back of the grid along with Igor Sicuro, who had mechanical trouble pre-race, but Schober proceeded to have the drive of his life. He gained 20 positions to finish the race in fifth, the place where he was originally due to start the race.
Sixth was taken by Claudio Remigio Cappelli, who grabbed the top spot in the Legend Trophy with a gap of 1.001 seconds from seventh place finisher Melvin de Groot. De Groot finished one place ahead of teammate Thomas Dombrowski, who scored his fourth win in the Rookie Trophy sub-classification.
Paolo Valeri and Michael Bleekemolen completed the top-10 after a relatively clean race for the veterans. It was not a clean race for Thomas Toffel, who got spun by Nick Schneider on lap 2. Toffel still captured second place in Rookie Trophy ahead of Schneider, who was demoted from eighth to twelfth after receiving a 10-second time penalty.
Only 15 cars finished on the lead lap with Olivier Panagiotis, Olivier Bec and Sven van Laere rounding out the lead lap finishers. Eric Quintal and Arianna Casoli finished a lap down while Max Mason lost two laps after making an unscheduled stop courtesy of the meatball flag.
Sicuro experienced mechanical troubles that forced him to retire with 5 laps to go. He finished ahead of Cesare Balistreri, who only joined the race starting on lap 9. Balistreri was involved in a high-speed incident with Riccardo Romagnoli in the preceding ENPRO race that forced Double T’s mechanics to do a quick repair for his car.
Romagnoli himself was the race’s sole non-starter as The Club Motorsport’s mechanics were not able to repair the No. 65 Chevrolet Camaro in time for the race in the junior division.
Race 2 Recap
The Sunday ‘race’ began at 10:30 AM local time and it turned out to be one of the races of all time. Only a quarter of the race was run under green flag conditions as the race devolved into a “cautions breed cautions” scenario thanks to the amount of incidents that the EuroNASCAR 2 drivers were involved in.
Saturday’s winner Alberto Naska led the field to the green flag, but a poor getaway meant that Paul Jouffreau was able to get the acceleration that he needed to get past the Italian on the run to Cimini. Chaos then unfolds just after the leaders cleared Cimini and entered the flat out left kink to Campagnano.
Fourth row starter Thomas Toffel was trying to make a move on teammate Claudio Remigio Cappelli when he clipped the right side of Cappelli’s No. 18 Ford Mustang. Both Toffel and Cappelli then spun right in front of the pack, creating a Big One crash that involved 8 drivers.
In the aftermath, six drivers were taken out on the spot: Toffel, Melvin de Groot, Igor Sicuro, Max Mason, Cesare Balistreri and Riccardo Romagnoli. With the exception of Balistreri, all of the cars that crashed received damage so severe that it wasn’t able to start the EuroNASCAR PRO race, contributing to the record high seven non-starters in ENPRO.
Mason also had to make a trip to the infield hospital after his car got airborne and landed hard to the ground. He was eventually diagnosed with a neck injury. As a consequence of what he caused, Toffel was disqualified from the final results and will have to race under stewards’ probation for the next round at Autodrom Most.
The mess was cleared after four laps under the Safety Car and on lap 6, the drivers took their first restart. The stewards were so pissed at the drivers that they immediately ordered the drivers to restart in single file formation, something that is only reserved for races that had to be restarted twice.
Jouffreau was able to hold his lead for what turned out to be the longest portion of green flag period as the caution was called again on lap 8 after Olivier Panagiotis got himself beached in the gravel trap at Cimini.
The race was restarted for the second and final time on lap 11 with Jouffreau retaining his lead. It didn’t take long for another caution to be called however as the drivers once again created a mess, this time just before the Campagnano corner.
Nick Strickler was racing inside the top-15 when he got hit by Valerio Marzi’s No. 9 Italicus Ford. The contact sent Strickler’s car into a high speed collision with the Armco barriers on the left side of the track.
Thankfully Strickler was uninjured, but the crash completely destroyed the No. 94 Racingfuel.biz Camaro and contributed to Alina Loibnegger’s DNS in the Sunday EuroNASCAR PRO race. Much like Toffel, Marzi was disqualified from the race as a result of his extremely dangerous contact.
Strickler’s crash, which caused damage to the Armco barriers, was the final straw for the stewards as they ordered the drivers to end the race under yellow. Jouffreau’s first lap overtake gave him the first win of his EuroNASCAR career, although it was clear that Jouffreau would have liked the race to go green for longer.
“I’ve been good at the start and it gave me the win, so I have to be happy but in no way I want to win like that,” said Jouffreau in the Victory Lane. “I wanted to have a nice big battle with Alberto as we had the set up to fight at this race, but it ended up like that.”
“I’m happy for the win, but I would have preferred to battle with him because every race we’re close and this should be how we race. It wasn’t meant to be, but we got good points for the championship.”
Vladimiros Tziortzis took the final podium position ahead of Gil Linster, who expressed his disappointment towards the stewards for the decision to end the race under yellow.
Thomas Dombrowski scored his fifth Rookie Trophy win of the season with his first top-5 finish. Martin Doubek, Patrick Schober and Nick Schneider were sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.
Ninth was taken by the 73-year old Michael Bleekemolen, who grabbed the win in Legend Trophy after narrowly escaping a collision with Balistreri during the Big One.
Cappelli was able to escape the Big One effectively unharmed. He rejoined the race at the back of the pack, but the short amount of green flag laps was enough for him to move up to tenth. He narrowly beat Paolo Valeri, who lost the rear bodywork of his car in the Big One.
Vladimiros Tziortzis kept his place as the championship leader in EuroNASCAR 2 with 227 points to his name, but the results from Vallelunga allowed Alberto Naska and Paul Jouffreau to close the gap. The 21 point advantage that Tziortzis had to Naska has been reduced to 13, while Jouffreau’s gap went from 25 points to 17.
Gil Linster is still in fourth with 198 points with Thomas Dombrowski now sitting in fifth after another strong weekend for the young Frenchman. Dombrowski also extended his lead in Rookie Trophy further with 38 points now separating him and Marko Stipp Motorsport’s Nick Schneider.
Martin Doubek‘s quest for the second title has taken another step back with a retirement in the Saturday race. With 59 points separating Doubek from Tziortzis, it would be a miracle if the Czech driver was able to find his way back to the championship title race in the second half of the season.
Claudio Remigio Cappelli became the new leader of Legend Trophy in seventh place overall. Patrick Schober, Michael Bleekemolen and Schneider completed the top-10 positions. The sole Lady Trophy contender Arianna Casoli is 15th in the standings with 117 points to her name.
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.