Liam Hezemans is the new king of American SpeedFest with his victory in Race 2, giving the Dutchman enough points to overhaul the tally of Race 1 winner Vittorio Ghirelli.
The 2024 edition of NASCAR GP UK crowned a new “king” of stock car racing at Brands Hatch in the form of Hendriks Motorsport’s ace pilot Liam Hezemans. Liam gained the throne thanks to a dominant performance on Sunday, which marks the 21-year old’s second win of the 2024 season.
Fans were once again treated with amazing action during the American SpeedFest 11, Powered by Lucas Oil and even the notoriously temperamental British weather briefly got to the mix when a five-minute shower hit the track on Saturday.
This race was won by Vittorio Ghirelli, who maintained his lead in the overall EuroNASCAR PRO championship despite some setbacks in Race 2.
Race 1 Recap
The green flag for the first EuroNASCAR PRO race was waved at approximately 1:35 PM local time. Pole sitter Ghirelli maintained his lead on the opening lap, but front row starter Martin Doubek wasn’t able to do the same as he lost out to Paul Jouffreau at Paddock Hill Bend.
Further down the order, Sebastiaan Bleekemolen gained five places and was battling Thomas Toffel for eighth position, but was held back by Toffel after his engine started to experience some issues.
The Dutchman was given an opportunity to pass on lap 11 when Toffel’s engine expired at the front straight. With Toffel’s No. 34 SIMATOK Camaro parked in a precarious position, the Full Course Yellow was brought out on lap 13 to allow marshalls to remove his car from the live race track.
A brief rain shower then came just as the race got underway again on lap 14. It rained heavily enough to necessitate the calling of the Safety Car on lap 17.
The rain’s arrival was a false dawn, however, as it had stopped by lap 21. The officials judged the track to be safe for green flag conditions and thus, the race was restarted on lap 23 after five laps behind the Safety Car.
Only two laps were added back to the race distance, but this was not an issue for Ghirelli. He kept the lead during the restart and fend off the challenges from Jouffreau to secure his fourth win of the 2024 season.
“I’m really happy with the win, but it was a tough race,” said Ghirelli in the Victory Lane. “The rain didn’t help and the #3 was really fast, so I had a lot of pressure throughout the race.”
“When it started to rain I had a moment in Turn 1. After that I didn’t take too many risks, so I won’t be starting from pole for tomorrow’s race. I think I’m starting P2, but it’s a really good weekend so far. This was the toughest win of the season so far, but I made no mistakes and managed to bring it home in first.”
Jouffreau, who won the Junior Trophy, finished 0.813 seconds behind in second and survived the pressure from his former team boss Lucas Lasserre. Lasserre got the jump on Doubek at the restart and kept it until the checkered flag to secure the final position on the podium.
Doubek had to contend with a fourth place in the end. Reigning SpeedFest winner Gianmarco Ercoli was unable to find a way past his main rivals, but still brought home an important top-5 finish.
Liam Hezemans crossed the line in sixth, but will start Race 2 from pole position after he set the fastest lap of the race with a time of 49.071. Ulysse Delsaux, Thomas Krasonis, Vladimiros Tziortzis and Bleekemolen completed the top-10 positions.
Max Marzorati won the battle of the Brits in eleventh. The Harrow on the Hill-born driver put up a strong show in front of the home crowd at Brands Hatch and beat Lux Motorsport’s Jack Davidson by 1.413 seconds after 40 laps of racing.
Marzorati nearly lost his eleventh place in the closing stages after Ryan Vargas got past him on lap 37, but the American went off at Paddock Hill soon after. The 3F Racing driver was lucky to not crash into the tire barriers, but the excursion to the gravel left Vargas disappointed with himself.
Series veteran Dario Caso took advantage of Toffel’s early retirement to clinch his first Challenger Trophy win of the season, beating Riccardo Romagnoli and class debutant Frederic Perriat.
Nick Strickler had a troublesome race at Brands Hatch after he tagged Kenko Miura into a spin on lap 25 and had a self-inflicted spin twelve laps later.
Contact also led to the downfall of Bremotion driver Tobias Dauenhauer. The German was already struggling with pace and during the race, he also had problems with his onboard radio not working properly.
The team’s issues to relay information in real-time resulted in Dauenhauer being late to realize that the Safety Car was out. He made contact with Tziortzis whilst behind the Safety Car and the subsequent unscheduled pit stops relegated him to 20th place.
Last amongst the competitors was Fabrizio Armetta, who had to start from pit lane and completed only seven laps due to an engine issue. However, the Italian set a very strong personal best lap time of 49.322, allowing him to start fifth for Sunday’s Race 2.
Race 2 Recap
Liam Hezemans led 24 drivers to the green flag for the second EuroNASCAR PRO race on Sunday. The Dutchman successfully retained his lead on the opening lap, but it didn’t take long before the Safety Car was called.
Marzorati was continuing his battle with fellow Brit Davidson when he went in front of the Scotsman’s No. 21 GT Omega Camaro. Contact was inevitable and Marzorati got sent into the walls on the short straight before Druids.
Marzorati was eliminated immediately while Davidson circled on for 11 more laps before he decided to retire in order to preserve his machine for the Sunday EuroNASCAR 2 race.
The deployment of the Safety Car was called off on lap 7 and the restart went without a hitch. Liam again retained his lead on the short run to Paddock Hill Bend, aided by some fortunate pushes from Lasserre.
Lasserre got a good restart and used his momentum to get past Ercoli for second place at Druids. However, that’s as best as it can get for the Frenchman because he had no answer to the pace of Liam’s No. 50 HOOSH Toyota.
There was some scare for Liam when he lapped the backmarkers in the last few laps, but he had enough of a gap to take the checkered flag and become the new king of the American SpeedFest.
“During the restart, we were starting two-by-two and I got the push from Lasserre because Ercoli was on the outside, so that actually helped me to push him [Ercoli] wide,” said Liam, who also won the Junior Trophy.
“The car was pretty awesome the whole race, the problem was just at the end with the lapped cars. Of course you try to take it quite gently, but Lasserre was taking all the risk. I saw him catching back a lot, but finally, the second win of the season!”
Good speed was also demonstrated by Liam’s teammate Doubek, who took third to secure a double podium finish for Hendriks. Doubek passed both Ghirelli and Armetta on the restart before he found the opening to get by Ercoli on lap 14 to seal his return to the podium.
Ercoli had to settle for fourth, but the Italian was pleased with the bigger picture because Ghirelli had more than a few issues with his No. 24 infitto.eu Camaro.
Ghirelli was lacking speed on Sunday and dropped a few positions on both the initial start and the restart. He then got pushed wide by Armetta on lap 32, costing him three more positions when he was battling for a top-5 finish.
Ghirelli was critical of Armetta, who had angered several drivers in Race 2. The Club Motorsport owner tipped Toffel into a race-ending spin and also used his bumper to bump-and-run past Delsaux and Dauenhauer.
All of this resulted in the Italian receiving both a 10-second and a drive through penalty from race control. “He pushed me five or six times, that was a tough situation. I’m really not okay with how he raced me today,” Ghirelli said of the 55 car.
Dauenhauer was fortunate that Armetta’s roughness left a minor impact on him because the German secured a top-5 finish from 12th on the grid. Jouffreau, Delsaux and Ghirelli crossed the line in sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.
Sebastiaan was ninth ahead of effective stable-mate Ryan Vargas, who took his first top-10 finish of the season. The American received plenty of support from the fans at Brands Hatch, among which is popular content creator Tom “Tommo” McCluskey.
Vargas charged through the pack, moving up by 8 positions from 18th on the grid. He was rewarded with the bonus points for most positions gained as he was the highest finishing driver amongst those who gained 8 places in the final results.
Two places behind him was Max Lanza, the winner of the Challenger Trophy classification. He beat Romagnoli and Miura, who were busy trying to get past one and another throughout the race.
Championship Standings
With Ghirelli’s subpar results from Race 2 and his points penalty from pre-race, the lead that the PK Carsport driver had to Ercoli has been reduced to just 11 points. Liam’s victory promoted the Dutchman up to third, now 14 points behind with a total score of 190.
Jouffreau and Lasserre’s podiums were enough to see them maintain a top-5 spot in the championship, 19 and 24 points behind respectively. Behind them, there was a three-way tie for sixth between Dauenhauer, Delsaux and Doubek as they all had 167 points to their name.
Doubek won the tie as he had more podiums than his rivals: Three compared to Dauenhauer’s one and Delsaux’s zero. Krasonis and Vargas completed the top-10 ahead of Max Lanza, the new leader of Challenger Trophy with 133 points.
EuroNASCAR PRO Points Standings
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