Gianmarco Ercoli drives the #11 Alumitec Ford during Free Practice for the 2025 American Festival of Rome
Credits: NASCAR Euro Series / Bart Dehaese
Gianmarco Ercoli and Martin Doubek are the leaders on the Free Practice sessions for the 2025 American Festival of Rome.

Alumitec Racing’s Gianmarco Ercoli and Hendriks Motorsport’s Martin Doubek received an early advantage in the 2025 NASCAR GP Italy after they topped the Free Practice sessions in EuroNASCAR PRO and EuroNASCAR OPEN on Friday.

Gianmarco and Doubek led Vittorio Ghirelli and Claudio Remigio Cappelli for the top spot in their respective divisions. The tricky Autodromo Vallelunga was not an issue for either driver, who had won races at the 4.085 kilometer circuit before.

Gianmarco is on a mission to return to the top of the leaderboards. Changes were made to his No. 11 Alumitec Ford Mustang by technical partners CAAL Racing after his disappointing performance in the previous round at Valencia.

It was not without issues though. After finding out that his gearbox went a little haywire in FP1, Gianmarco swapped to a new unit for FP2. With a best lap time of 1:41.289, the 2023 champion stood on top as the fastest in EuroNASCAR’s top division.

Fabrizio Armetta races on with a new look on his #55 Dinoil Camaro, now competing under the Club Competition banner starting from the 2025 NASCAR GP Italy
Credits: NASCAR Euro Series / Nina Weinbrenner

Great rival Ghirelli was leading in FP1 and even though his times in FP2 were lagging behind, it was only by 0.154 seconds. Ghirelli’s teammate Thomas Krasonis completed the top-3 as the fastest in the Junior Trophy.

Rette Jones / Hendriks stablemates Liam Hezemans and Doubek filled the top-5 positions ahead of Fabrizio Armetta. Armetta gave his team – now called Club Competition – a new look for Vallelunga, having raced with Club’s 2024 livery at Valencia.

Paul Jouffreau, Sebastiaan Bleekemolen, Cappelli and Max Lanza rounded out the top-10. Cappelli also led the Challenger Trophy, which only featured four competitors following Giovanni Faraonio’s late swap to EuroNASCAR OPEN.

Garrett Lowe's crashed #99 BS+ Competition Camaro, as photographed by EuroNASCAR photographer Nina Weinbrenner
Credits: NASCAR Euro Series / Nina Weinbrenner

One driver who struggled on Friday is Bremotion’s Garrett Lowe. Lowe missed out on the action in FP2 after he crashed his No. 99 Chevrolet Camaro in FP1.

“I was on my in-lap and going through Turn 10, the gearbox went into neutral from fourth,” said Lowe on what happened. “As I downshifted from fourth to third, it got stuck in neutral so I couldn’t stop.”

“Once I got into the gravel, I was along for the ride. We had to take the whole left front off, it was a big setback for the day. We’re going to get it fixed up and figure out what we did wrong.”

EuroNASCAR PRO FP1 Results | EuroNASCAR PRO FP2 Results
Martin Doubek laps Autodromo Vallelunga with his #7 Orion Ford during the 2025 NASCAR GP Italy
Credits: NASCAR Euro Series / Bart Dehaese

In EuroNASCAR OPEN, Doubek dominated the proceedings after he led both Practice sessions. Having led FP1 with a time of 1:42.473, Doubek went one step faster by clocking a lap of 1:42.061 in FP2.

The Czech driver revealed after the session that he maintained the same setup that he used from last year. It demonstrates how much speed that the No. 7 Orion Ford has against the opposition.

Cappelli led Academy Motorsport’s charge in their home round with his runner-up result. Cappelli is also the leader in Legend Trophy, making it two trophies that the 50-year old led on Friday.

Claudio Remigio Cappelli (#5) leads Legend Trophy rivals Giovanni Faraonio (#22) and Melvin de Groot (#69) during Free Practice for the 2025 American Festival of Rome
Credits: NASCAR Euro Series / Bart Dehaese

The three Thomases followed suit: Krasonis, Dombrowski and Toffel. Dombrowski’s fourth place is enough to hand the Frenchman the lead in the Master Trophy.

Melvin de Groot and Patrick Schober will have some work to do after they found themselves eighth tenths of a second behind Doubek. The same goes for championship leader Gil Linster, who had mechanical issues in FP1 that prevented the Luxembourger from setting a meaningful lap time.

Valerio Marzi, Bruno Mulders and Mario Ercoli completed the top-10 results. In the Lady Trophy, Arianna Casoli has the upper hand by going nearly 1.6 seconds faster than Vanessa “Happinessa” Neumann.

EuroNASCAR OPEN FP1 Results | EuroNASCAR OPEN FP2 Results

Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.

By Reza Maulana

Owner of World of EuroNASCAR. Official member of the EuroNASCAR media team. Long-time motorsport fan from Indonesia.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *