Vittorio Ghirelli and Liam Hezemans won the 2024 EuroNASCAR opener at Valencia under dramatic circumstances, with late retirements and The Big One making a huge impact on the results.
The 2024 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series season started with a weekend to remember at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo. PK Carsport‘s Vittorio Ghirelli and Hendriks Motorsport‘s Liam Hezemans won the two EuroNASCAR PRO races held in Spain under dramatic circumstances.
Ghirelli took victory in Race 1 after race leader Tobias Dauenhauer suffered a mechanical trouble with just two laps to go, while Liam won Race 2 after he survived an eleven car pile-up that forced the race to be completely restarted.
The recap from each race can be seen in their respective sections below.
Race 1 Recap
Bright sunshine greeted the 24 drivers for the first EuroNASCAR PRO race of the 2024 season. The race started at approximately 14:03 CEST with pole sitter Ghirelli making a bad start, allowing Dauenhauer to claim the lead in the first corner.
Further back, a three-wide attempt went wrong resulted in contact between Vladimiros Tziortzis, Thomas Dombrowski and Ryan Vargas. Dombrowski was tipped into a spin while Vargas lost the front-left fender of his No. 30 Critical Path Security Chevrolet.
Thomas Krasonis and Victor Neumann were also forced to go really wide to avoid the incident, costing them a lot of positions.
Dauenhauer held the lead firmly for the majority of the race with Sebastiaan Bleekemolen in second and Ghirelli third. The German driver was able to drive away from his closest rivals and it looked like he would score a back-to-back victory when the dominoes began to fall on lap 12.
On that lap, Sebastiaan’s car suddenly experienced a rear-right issue – either a puncture or a broken suspension – that took him out of the race. Four laps later, the driveshaft in Dauenhauer’s car broke down as well, leaving Ghirelli to take the lead.
The Italian then cruised to victory as he continued his perfect start to the season, admittedly under fortuitous circumstances. Fabrizio Armetta crossed the line in an impressive second while Paul Jouffreau charged up from 15th on the grid to secure the final podium position.
“It was a nice race and I had a really good pace, but we had a little issue at the start so we lost a few positions,” said Ghirelli in the Victory Lane. “The outside lane just had a better start. We have to analyze the data to sort it out for tomorrow.”
“It’s so hard to overtake and the temperatures were very high, so we were pushing the cars to the limit. I dedicate this victory to my uncle, he passed away a few months ago. It was important to win, let’s carry on like that.”
At least, that’s how things stand at the checkered flag. Several hours later, technical inspectors discovered that Armetta had used illegal shock absorbers in his car. The Italian was subsequently disqualified, promoting Jouffreau up to second with Lucas Lasserre completing the podium.
Lasserre again maximized the cards he had in hand by keeping his car away from any potential problems. Marc Goossens recovered from a post-Qualifying engine change to finish fourth ahead of Gianmarco Ercoli, who was fifth in his first race as a father.
Ulysse Delsaux ran a steady race to finish sixth ahead of Thomas Toffel, who took the top spot in the Challenger Trophy. Toffel enjoyed a fantastic battle with Patrick Lemarié that nearly went into a heartbreak when the Full Course Yellow was deployed in lap 13 due to Kenko Miura’s retirement.
Lemarié was closely following Toffel when the FCY was called. Toffel slowed down quicker than Lemarié, nearly causing the Frenchman to clatter into the back of Toffel had he not quickly steered his Ford Mustang away from Toffel’s Chevrolet.
Tziortzis recovered to ninth ahead of Krasonis and Vargas, both recovering from their first lap incident to complete the Junior Trophy podium. Challenger Trophy’s top-3 were filled by Max Lanza and Dario Caso in 13th and 15th respectively.
Other drivers to encounter trouble were the Hendriks duo of Liam and Martin Doubek. Doubek was forced to retire on lap 7 due to a driveshaft issue while Liam had a puncture that relegated him down to 19th place in the final results.
Race 2 Recap
All 24 drivers returned to the grid for the second EuroNASCAR PRO race on Sunday with Ghirelli once again leading the field to the start at approximately 14:30 CEST. The Italian also once again made a bad start, but this time it led to a dire consequence.
Both Dauenhauer and Sebastiaan made an excellent start, with the former clearing the PK Carsport driver shortly after they crossed the start gantry. Sebastiaan then clipped the rear of Dauenhauer’s Camaro, sending him into the path of Ghirelli and he got turned by the No. 24 infitto.eu Camaro into the inside wall.
Chaos then ensued as the field crashed and banged into each other, creating a “Big One” at Circuit Ricardo Tormo. The marshalls acted swiftly and called a red flag period shortly after.
In the end, eleven cars were involved: Bleekemolen, Doubek, Lemarie, Tziortzis, Armetta, Ghirelli, Delsaux, Goossens, Krasonis, Vargas and Riccardo Romagnoli. The first five were eliminated immediately while the rest were able to continue racing.
“I thought I was at Talladega for a minute,” said Vargas of the incident. “The whole field was flying apart. It looked like the Big One and it really was one.”
“I was in the middle of it, had a good start and was in the pack and once they started flying apart I was just ricocheting off from everybody. I’m glad everyone’s okay, Sebastiaan took a big hit and it was scary to see him go back into the traffic.”
Half an hour later, the 19 remaining drivers formed themselves for the restart. Due to the severity of the incident, the race was restarted completely and shortened to 17 laps, but those who retired at the first start attempt were credited with starts to their name.
Thankfully the restart was clean, but there was further drama on the opening lap. Lasserre aggressively drove into Jouffreau on the run to Champi Herreros corner, drawing the ire of Jouffreau as it caused gravel to get into his radiator.
Gianmarco also had his own trouble, diving into the pits for a lengthy pit stop on lap 1. Dombrowski, Miura and Neumann also entered the pits later in the race while Romagnoli and Jack Davidson suffered mechanical failures that forced them to retire.
At the front, Ghirelli maintained his lead early on, but his wishbone was buckled from the impact with Sebastiaan. This allowed Liam, who had a healthy No. 50 HOOSH/GIMS Toyota Camry in his disposal, to catch and eventually overtake the Italian on lap 7.
Liam’s pace proved to be untouchable as he opened a 4 second gap on his way to a second career ENPRO victory and also the win in Junior Trophy. Ghirelli held on to second from Dauenhauer, who avenged his Saturday heartbreak with a podium finish.
“Awesome job by the team!” said Hezemans in Victory Lane. “The car was awesome, as we already saw in Gil Linster’s race. We made some adjustments and it turned out to work pretty well. Next round is Vallelunga and I hope we can show that we’re just as fast!”
Lasserre was fourth on the line, but he was later given a 10-second time penalty for his incident with Jouffreau. This promoted Goossens to fourth, having raced with a considerable amount of duct tape being applied to his Toyota for the restarted race.
If there’s a “Driver of the Day” award in EuroNASCAR, then it has to be given to Delsaux for his amazing recovery drive. The Frenchman – along with Vargas – had to take the restart from the pits, but he put on a valiant charge to recover 12 places and finish sixth onboard the No. 14 Ford.
Seventh placed finisher Toffel not only brought home the win in Challenger Trophy, his results across the four races at Valencia allowed the Swiss driver to etch his name in the history books.
With him finishing all races across both divisions and his collective time being the quickest out of everyone, Toffel and Race Art Technology were recognized as the first winners of EuroNASCAR’s new Endurance Teams Championship.
Eighth was Krasonis, who admitted that he played it safe in the restart after he came within inches of wrecking his car during the Big One. Lanza and Caso filled the top-10 positions, the latter securing his first top-10 finish after 90 starts and nine years of trying.
Gianmarco recovered to eleventh and passed Vargas on the final lap. The American’s car was in such a sorry state that it became a hybrid between an EuroNASCAR car and a Modified stock car. Nick Strickler, Neumann, Miura and Jouffreau rounded out the finishers.
“At the end of the day we look like a Modified car, which is fitting since the series is sponsored by Whelen and they sponsored the Whelen Modified Tour in the United States,” joked Vargas post-race.
Such was the attrition that only five drivers managed to keep their car fully intact without any collisions or mechanical troubles: Liam, Toffel, Lanza, Caso, Strickler.
In the standings, Ghirelli is awarded the red Whelen championship banner as the new championship leader. He holds an advantage of nine points from Lasserre and Goossens. Both were tied on points, but the Frenchman is second courtesy of a best finish tiebreaker.
Delsaux is fourth with 62 points while Trophy leaders Jouffreau and Toffel were tied with 60 points. Jouffreau’s runner-up in Race 1 gave him the advantage from Toffel, who only had two sixths.
Liam and Gianmarco were also tied with 58 points with Liam winning the tie through his win in Race 2. Krasonis and Caso complete the top-10 positions in the overall standings.
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.