Vittorio Ghirelli dominated Saturday’s EuroNASCAR PRO race at Circuit Zolder while main rival Paul Jouffreau saw his title chances disappear in an early incident.
Vittorio Ghirelli is inching closer to back-to-back EuroNASCAR PRO championship titles after a dramatic Saturday race in the 2025 NASCAR Euro Series Finals at Circuit Zolder.
The PK Carsport driver dominated the race from the start to finish. Ghirelli held his lead at the opening lap and never looked back, finishing more than nine seconds ahead of Liam Hezemans to secure his fourth win of the season.
Crucially, Ghirelli’s main title rival Paul Jouffreau was effectively eliminated from contention after he got caught up in a first corner incident.
Jouffreau was hit by Bruno Mulders, who got out of shape after Thomas Toffel hit him in the braking zone. Mulders’ car hit Jouffreau on the rear-left wheel, completely destroying the Frenchman’s rear suspension.
With Jouffreau forced to retire before the first lap had even been completed and Gianmarco Ercoli finishing third, Ghirelli extended his overall advantage to 30 points heading to Sunday’s decider.
Ghirelli needs to finish 12th or higher on Sunday to clinch the 2025 NASCAR Euro Series championship title.
“We did a fantastic job and the #24 was flying thanks to my team,” said Ghirelli in Victory Lane. “They really gave me a GT3 car for this weekend. There’s so much grip that I can attack at every corner!”
“After I built a good gap, I managed the tires for tomorrow. The battle is still on, everything can happen and we need to focus. We were the fastest in the Playoffs and we deserve this win.”
Liam was happy with his runner-up finish, but there were frustrations for Ercoli. The Alumitec Racing driver strongly believed that Ghirelli’s No. 24 infitto.eu Camaro was not legal, a point that he expressed in his pre- and post-race interviews.
Ghirelli’s car was checked by scrutineers after Qualifying and the Saturday race. Both times, it was deemed legal by race control with no irregularities found.
Thomas Krasonis came close to ending his podium drought. The Greek missed out on his first EuroNASCAR PRO podium since the Vallelunga round in May by 0.372 seconds.
However, Krasonis did say before the race that he didn’t want to interfere in the title battle. It’s therefore plausible that he held himself back and allowed Ercoli to keep his podium to fulfill his pre-race statement.
Sebastiaan Bleekemolen completed the top-5 positions, narrowly missing out on the most positions gained bonus points. The bonus point was awarded to 12th place finisher Jack Davidson, who gained eight positions in comparison to Sebastiaan’s seven.
Julien Rehberg and Davit Kajaia celebrated their career-best finishes in sixth and seventh respectively. Rehberg was also fighting for the podium positions early on, but the No. 77 OnlyFans Camaro did not have the long-run speed to keep up with the leaders. Fabrizio Armetta, Marc Goossens and Vladimiros Tziortzis rounded out the top-10.
British F4 star Chase Fernandez was on course to finish tenth on his debut race when his No. 76 Race Planet Toyota conked out with just half a lap to go. As for fellow debutant Igor Stefanovski, the Macedonian kept his No. 20 Visit & Enjoy Macedonia clean to the finish.
Fernandez and Jouffreau were joined in the sidelines by four more retirements. Three were caused by mechanical issues: Max Lanza, Claudio Remigio Cappelli and Toffel all retired from it.
The last retirement was Federico Monti, who was a victim of another opening lap incident. Garrett Lowe was badly affected by the first corner incident, dropping the American down to last in the running order.
Later in the lap, Lowe was trying to recover positions when he made contact with Monti on the short chute heading to Bolderbocht.
This contact sent Monti’s car into the outside wall, ending the Italian’s race on the spot. His crash, coupled with Jouffreau’s retirement, necessitated a caution period that lasted for three laps.
Race control added all three laps back at the restart, turning the scheduled 18-lap race into a 21-lap event.
EuroNASCAR PRO Race 1 Results
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