Vittorio Ghirelli and Paul Jouffreau ended the 2024 EuroNASCAR PRO regular season by taking one race win each in the 2024 NASCAR GP Czech Republic at Autodrom Most.
Vittorio Ghirelli and Paul Jouffreau were the dominant drivers in the fifth round of the 2024 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series campaign, the regular season ending NASCAR GP Czech Republic at Autodrom Most.
Ghirelli and Jouffreau had the best cars of the weekend and showed that they’re evenly matched by taking one race wins apiece, with the Italian winning Race 1 on Saturday before the Frenchman struck back in Race 2 on Sunday.
In a dramatic round that saw plenty of drama from top to bottom, Ghirelli and Jouffreau will have momentum that they’ll plan to convert into strong results on the upcoming double points playoffs at Oschersleben and Zolder.
Race 1 Recap
All 23 drivers took the green flag for Race 1 was it waved at 13:40 CEST on Saturday. For once the infamous first chicane was cleared without major incidents, although the big drama came on the following lap.
Title contender Lucas Lasserre made a good start and climbed up to fifth from ninth, but on lap 2 he suddenly ran into mechanical trouble during his battle with reigning champion Gianmarco Ercoli.
Lasserre moved to the left to let the others through, but Ercoli had also moved to the left in an attempt to pass the slowing No. 33 Sud-Ouest Remorques Ford. Contact was inevitable and Lasserre was sent into the Armco, causing significant damage to his car.
Whilst this was happening, the leading pack of Vittorio Ghirelli, Paul Jouffreau, and Team Bleekemolen’s duo of Marc Goossens and Sebastiaan Bleekemolen had already left the others behind.
Soon the lead battle turned into a two-horse race between Ghirelli and Jouffreau, but the latter wasn’t able to find an opportunity. That is, until lap 11 where Ghirelli left just enough room at the first chicane for Jouffreau to slot his No. 3 Keyman Ford in.
Both drivers touched, but Ghirelli got the momentum to maintain his lead. Several corners later, Jouffreau ran wide and lost time from his rallycross moment.
That mistake gave the Italian enough of an advantage to fend off the Frenchman and take his fifth victory of 2024.
“Jouffreau was very fast and we were struggling from halfway through the race,” said Ghirelli after the race. “He was a bit aggressive, but it was a nice battle. I really struggled, but I also had a lot of fun.”
“It wasn’t so physical, but mentally it was really tough. If I would have made a little mistake, he would have passed me. This is for my dad, he’ll be having a hip surgery soon and this victory is for him.”
Jouffreau was only 0.2 seconds behind at the line, but he took the fastest lap and Junior Trophy win. Goossens won the Team Bleekemolen battle to take third, becoming the oldest EuroNASCAR PRO podium finisher in the process.
Liam Hezemans’ race was compromised by a bad start that dropped him down to ninth at the opening lap. He recovered to fifth and minimized his loss in the championship battle.
Martin Doubek, Fabrizio Armetta, Tobias Dauenhauer ran a quiet race on their way to sixth, seventh and eighth. Things were more dramatic for ninth place finisher Ulysse Delsaux, who had to recover from being turned into a half-spin by Vladimiros Tziortzis.
A very strong race was had by Max Lanza, who once again showed speed at Most by taking home a top-10 overall finish and first in the Challenger Trophy.
Tziortzis’ impact with Delsaux resulted in a 5-second time penalty that dropped him to eleventh. Ryan Vargas in 12th nearly overtook Tziortzis as well, but the American was slightly too far behind to take advantage of the Cypriot’s penalty.
Further back, Gianmarco’s race went from bad to worse after he ran wide at the chicane on lap 3 and struck the tire stack that’s placed there.
This greatly compromised his car and he languished into the lower end of the field, spending most of his race battling with Liam Lambert, Simone Giussani, Thomas Dombrowski and Dario Caso on his way to 16th place.
Lasserre eventually finished 20th after a pit stop for repairs. Caso also made a stop for mechanical troubles, but he kept his car running and finished ahead of Victor Neumann and Riccardo Romagnoli, both retiring early.
Race 2 Recap
The grid was reassembled on Sunday afternoon for the start of Race 2 with Paul Jouffreau on pole position. The action didn’t last long however, as a multi-car pile-up at Turns 5-6 forced the marshalls to bring out the red flag.
Twelfth place starter Thomas Toffel had missed the first chicane, but it inadvertently allowed the Swiss driver to gain a lot of position because the field checked up on the chicane itself.
Rejoining in fifth position, Toffel squeezed Sebastiaan Bleekemolen into the side of Liam Hezemans. The contact immediately tore off the right side bodywork of Bleekemolen’s Toyota and sent him spinning backwards.
Bleekemolen’s car was struck by both Thomas Dombrowski and Fabrizio Armetta, the latter also being rear-ended by Ulysse Delsaux.
Bleekemolen, Dombrowski and Armetta were eliminated on the spot while Delsaux limped his car into retirement in the pits.
Several drivers narrowly avoided the incident, such as Ryan Vargas who avoided it by stopping his car in the gravel trap. Vittorio Ghirelli and Gianmarco Ercoli also dodged the crash site, finding just enough room to get away unscathed.
“You just have cars hot merging and coming across each other,” said Vargas on his crash POV. “A lot of cars just didn’t pay attention to where they’re at.”
“I know spotters are a bit limited here, but at the end of the day there’s mirrors. Watching some of these incidents, they could be avoided for the most part.”
The cleanup process took 20 minutes to complete and when the race got underway again, it’s decided that the initial start would be voided and the initial race distance of 17 laps would be retained.
Race control also decided to have a single-file restart, which was done after one sighting lap behind the Hyundai i30 N Safety Car. Jouffreau took the restart in the lead and managed to retain it with Ghirelli advancing up to second.
In a reversal of the situation in Race 1, Ghirelli chased Jouffreau for lap after lap but couldn’t find a way past the RDV Competition driver.
After 17 laps, Jouffreau completed his first career ENPRO pole-to-win victory with a 0.529 second advantage from the PK Carsport driver.
“Ghirelli’s done an amazing job, he worked really well so big congratulations to him,” said Jouffreau, pointing out Ghirelli’s tenacity in the Victory Lane. “When you start first there’s no way something goes wrong if you did everything right.”
“I’m so happy, I’ve been chasing this win since Valencia and the job by everyone this weekend is amazing. Thanks to all my sponsors that made this possible.”
The battle for third place was hotly contested with six drivers contesting for the final podium spot at one point. In the end, Marc Goossens secured a back-to-back podium following a post-race decision by the stewards.
Lucas Lasserre had been charging his way from 22nd on the grid as he had saved his new set of slicks for this race. With fresh rubber, the Frenchman moved all the way up to fourth and challenged Goossens for the podium.
However, he punted Goossens wide on the last lap and while it enabled him to finish third, race control ordered the two drivers to swap their positions on the final results.
Fifth was Martin Doubek, having passed Liam who battled with steering issues caused by the first start crash. Liam was only sixth, ahead of Gianmarco, Vladimiros Tziortzis, Tobias Dauenhauer and Vargas who all completed the top-10.
Toffel should’ve finished ninth and taken the win in the Challenger Trophy, but he was disqualified for his role in the big incident. That left Riccardo Romagnoli – who started from 23rd and last place – to take the Trophy win in 11th overall.
This race proved to be disastrous for Marko Stipp Motorsport, which suffered a triple retirement. Victor Neumann and Nick Strickler ended their day in the pits with mechanical trouble while Thomas Krasonis spun off with seven laps to go.
Championship Standings
With five race wins, Vittorio Ghirelli became the “winner” of the regular season portion. The Italian leads with 283 points on his tally, which were eight and ten points ahead of Liam Hezemans and Paul Jouffreau.
Gianmarco Ercoli will have some catch-up to do from fourth in the standings, as did Lucas Lasserre and Tobias Dauenhauer in fifth and sixth.
Martin Doubek and Marc Goossens took advantage of their strong finishes in Czechia and the dropped points that eliminated their worst result away to move up to seventh and eighth.
Ulysse Delsaux and Ryan Vargas rounded out the top-10 with Max Lanza moving back up as the Challenger Trophy leader in 14th, having retaken the lead following Toffel’s disqualification.
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.