Thomas Krasonis survives a NASCAR GP Italy race full of twists and incidents to regain the championship lead in the EuroNASCAR OPEN.
The first EuroNASCAR OPEN race at the 2025 American Festival of Rome has chaos written all over it. Two cautions, surprise retirements and even a red flag period were witnessed in one of the most dramatic NASCAR Euro Series races on record.
Only one thing stayed stable and that’s Thomas Krasonis. Krasonis maintained his lead from the start and never flinched as he cruised to a pole-to-win victory at Autodromo Vallelunga.
Even though things looked peaceful and quiet for Krasonis, the Greek saw glimpses of the drama that took place behind him. The PK Carsport driver was particularly worried about the big crash that brought out the red flag.
“To be fair, it was a completely crazy race!” said Krasonis at the Victory Lane. “In the opening lap I saw [Thomas] Toffel when I looked behind, and then as I made a right hand turn I saw nobody there.”
“I don’t know what is happening, but then they told me it’s a red flag and I saw the crash. All the best to them and a speedy recovery to everyone involved because it’s a big crash.”
“Alon [Day, Krasonis’ driver coach] told me at the restart that it’s ‘single file, take the racing line and make a gap’. So that’s what we did and we never looked back.”
“We pushed to get the pole position and I took it on the last lap. All in all, we saw that we had the speed and we’ll try again tomorrow.”
The aforementioned crash that caused the stoppage happened at the start of lap 2. Toffel found himself at the back after a first lap incident where he tangled with championship leader Martin Doubek at Soratte.
Toffel then encountered Vanessa “Happinessa” Neumann at the fearsome Curva Grande. Both drivers misjudged their position and collided. The impact sent their cars straight into the tire barriers at high speed.
Due to their angle of approach, Toffel’s M Racing Camaro was bounced into the racing line. Sven van Laere narrowly dodges the stricken No. 34 car, but not his teammate Arianna Casoli.
Casoli found herself right in Toffel’s path, creating a second heavy impact that tore the left side of Casoli’s No. 14 Ford clean off the car.
All drivers walked away under their own power, although they received medical evaluation in Vallelunga’s medical center. It’s subsequently discovered that Casoli had fractured her arm, benching EuroNASCAR OPEN’s most experienced driver for some time.
With three wrecked cars and debris thrown everywhere, the race had to be red flagged – EuroNASCAR’s first in quite some time.
The drama did not stop even after the race was restarted nearly 40 minutes later. Mario Ercoli suffered a puncture right at the end of the first lap back under green flag.
This puncture caused Mario to spin his Lux Motorsport Camaro into the gravel. With Ercoli unable to drive the car out of the kitty litter, race control was forced to bring out the Full Course Yellow.
The FCY was rescinded on lap 5, giving Krasonis and the others time to breathe and battle with each other. FCY was brought back again on lap 11 for Andres Beers’ retirement from an engine failure.
Right before the second FCY was rescinded on lap 13, a major championship implication occurred. Doubek’s contact with Toffel created a fuel draft problem, which unknowingly caused the Czech to consume more fuel than he should.
His fuel ran out with just two laps to go, forcing Doubek’s retirement from the race. With Doubek already retiring from Valencia Race 1, this DNF served as a major blow to the double champion’s title hopes.
Even Doubek’s retirement was not the end of all the shenanigans. Bruno Mulders and Thomas Dombrowski made contact on the final restart, creating significant bodywork damage on Mulders’ No. 72 Toyota Camry.
Mulders was now running several seconds off the pace, but the young Dutchman was unfettered. He gave everything to defend Dombrowski to the line, securing a runner-up finish and the Master Trophy win by just 0.030 seconds.
There’s still celebrations to be held for Dombrowski in spite of that. It was the Frenchman’s first career podium finish in EuroNASCAR. The result also solidified a double podium finish for his team PK Carsport.
Claudio Remigio Cappelli battled hard to secure a Legend Trophy win in fourth place. Trophy rival Melvin de Groot also fought intensely to maintain his top-5 result from Patrick Schober.
Roberto Benedetti, Florian Richard, Sandro Tavartkiladze and Valentino Gambarotto completed the top-10. Attrition helped Gambarotto’s case because he had also found himself going sideways in the opening lap.
With both Neumann and Casoli wrecking out at the same time, no Lady Trophy ceremony was held after the race.
One final retirement to be talked about was Gil Linster. Linster forced himself to start the race in his No. 30 Rette Jones Racing Ford Mustang. The Luxembourger knew that completing at least one lap will give him full championship points, as per the EuroNASCAR points regulations.
Linster expected himself to only finish 21st, having planned to withdraw after just two laps. However, the stoppage convinced Linster to continue for a few more laps. He finally called it quits after four laps, having gained four positions thanks to the early retirements.
EuroNASCAR OPEN Race 1 Results
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.