World of EuroNASCAR’s final Race Preview for the NASCAR GP Czech Republic takes a look at what can be expected from the EuroNASCAR 2 drivers at Autodrom Most.
The NASCAR Whelen Euro Series competitors get up from their summer break slumber this week as the series is set to visit Autodrom Most for the fourth edition of the NASCAR GP Czech Republic, the fourth round of the 2023 season.
Autodrom Most made its debut in the EuroNASCAR schedule in 2019 as a standalone event before EuroNASCAR and FIA European Truck Racing Championship joined forces to host a double headline round in 2021, an arrangement that has been kept to this day.
The round has provided many highlights, which for last year saw the crowning of a first time winner in Sebastiaan Bleekemolen and Alberto Naska’s first weekend sweep in EuroNASCAR. The 25 teams and 47 drivers that are listed on the provisional Entry List for Most will get their chance to make their own moment to remember this weekend.
This NASCAR GP Czech Republic Preview article is the third of the three-part series, in which we will be focused on the preview for the EuroNASCAR 2 races. Part 1 was focused on the Entry List changes while Part 2 was focused on our preview for the EuroNASCAR PRO races.
Currently, there’s twenty-three drivers that are entered to the EuroNASCAR 2 division races and once again, it is expected that the ‘Big Three’ of Vladimiros Tziortzis, Alberto Naska and Paul Jouffreau will lead the headlines of the junior class this weekend.
Academy Motorsport’s stalwart Vladimiros Tziortzis performance on his fourth season in EuroNASCAR 2 has been spectacular. The 26-year old driver opened the year with four consecutive victories and had a chance to tie Stienes Longin’s record of five consecutive victories, but he suffered his first defeats at Vallelunga.
Getting back to the Victory Lane will be the goal for Tziortzis, who has scored three podiums in four starts at Most. The hardworking driver remained busy during the summer break as he and Academy did two mid-season testings at Cremona, getting some valuable data that could be the key for Tziortzis to score his first victory on the 4.212-kilometer circuit.
His closest rival, Alberto Naska, will have his efforts rejuvenated after he broke his winless streak at Vallelunga. After trailing Tziortzis in the first four races, Naska finally broke his duck with a highly emotional victory on his home race and closed the gap down to just 13 points.
Naska had only competed at Most once in his career, but it was an outing that brought the 33-year old driver his first weekend sweep in EuroNASCAR. Repeating his heroics is not going to be an easy one, but it’s something that the Italian will hedge his bets on this weekend.
Only 17 points separated Tziortzis from the driver in third place, Paul Jouffreau. Jouffreau is coming to Most with his stock at an all-time high after his spectacular outing in Vallelunga that culminated in both his first victory in EuroNASCAR 2 and a podium on his debut race in the top class.
Jouffreau will be busy with double duty once again, but Vallelunga proves that he’s more than ready to do that. A podium or two will be the goal for the 19-year old driver, who scored a fourth and a sixth place finish in the two races at Most last year.
Arriving at Most in fourth place on the standings is Gil Linster, who gained a reputation as the “best of the rest” in the first half of the 2023 season. The Luxembourger has finished in the top-5 in all of the races so far, but he has yet to truly fight alongside Tziortzis, Naska and Jouffreau at the front of the pack.
The same goes for Martin Doubek, who once again struggled to consistently fight among the “Big Three” like in 2022. Reaching the podium at his home track will be the ideal result for the 2021 champion, who was relegated to sixth in the standings after an unfortunate retirement in Vallelunga.
Hendriks Motorsport as a whole has been struggling to replicate the form that they had in the past three seasons, but promising signs were made at Vallelunga when Linster finished on the podium on the Saturday race. The team hopes that this progress can continue at the track where they have scored five wins across both divisions so far.
Slotting in between the Hendriks drivers is Thomas Dombrowski, the top driver of the rookie field in EuroNASCAR 2 this year. The Frenchman dominated the other rookies with five wins in the Rookie Trophy sub-classification and with consistent top-10 finishes, he was able to find his way to fifth in the overall standings right now.
Dombrowski has yet to race at Autodrom Most, but he will have the support of a team who knows a thing or two about winning in this track: Team Bleekemolen. With Dombrowski choosing to focus solely on EN2, he’s aiming to continue his winning ways in the Rookie Trophy and potentially find a path to the overall podium if the top drivers got into trouble.
Dombrowski’s closest Rookie Trophy rivals Nick Schneider and Jack Davidson also have not raced at Most, but they would have some extra data that they can use as Marko Stipp Motorsport visited Most to do a mid-season test last week.
MSM’s lead EuroNASCAR PRO driver Thomas Krasonis tested both of the team’s cars to perfect the team’s setup and test out the 2023-spec Hoosier tires on the new asphalt. Seeing that they’re the only team to do a mid-season test here, this can give Schneider and Davidson an extra edge against their opposition.
In the Legend Trophy, Claudio Remigio Cappelli now acts as the leader after solid finishes in Vallelunga. After a late spin in the first race at Valencia, Cappelli has bounced back with five straight top-10 finishes and holds a decent margin over Michael Bleekemolen, who beat Cappelli for the Trophy win at the Big One-affected race in Italy.
Both Cappelli and Bleekemolen have leapfrogged Riccardo Romagnoli, who now finds himself in third on the Trophy standings – and 12th overall – after an abysmal home round. With dropped points looming, Romagnoli cannot afford any other mistakes or else he would have to contend with a bad result counted toward his final points tally.
Things will finally heat up in the Lady Trophy with the addition of Alina Loibnegger and Stefani Mogorović. With Racingfuel withdrawing from NASCAR GP Czech Republic, Loibnegger has decided to temporarily move down to EuroNASCAR 2 and race with the debuting Bremotion team.
Loibnegger is very confident about her prospects at Most as she scored her first career top-10 finish at this track last year, the first of three top-10 finishes in 2022. This should bode well for her quest to try to take the top step of the Lady Trophy, which Arianna Casoli has dominated by default.
For the case of Mogorović, she will take control of Academy Motorsport’s No. 1 Ford Mustang as a replacement for Max Mason, who is out due to his injuries from Vallelunga. Mogorovic will create history at Most as not only will she become the first Croatian female driver to race in EuroNASCAR, she’s also going to be part of the first all-female line up in a decade.
Finally, there’s also the return of Valerio Marzi behind the wheel of Vict Motorsport’s No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro. Marzi, along with Thomas Toffel, will be racing under increased scrutiny thanks to their involvements in incidents at Vallelunga.
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.