Paul Jouffreau benefitted from late retirements to secure his second win of 2026 in Race 2 of EuroNASCAR V8GP at American SpeedFest.
Late race drama kept the British race fans on their feet for the second EuroNASCAR V8GP race at American SpeedFest.
Long time race leader Paul Jouffreau lost his lead to a fast charging Gianmarco Ercoli only for the Italian to retire with four laps to go. This turn of events promoted Jouffreau back to the lead, which he held on until the checkered flag.
A large 6.434 second gap separated Jouffreau to runner-up finisher Jordan O’Brien, but it was far from the easiest win in the Frenchman’s EuroNASCAR career so far.
“Ercoli’s speed at the end was scary,” said Jouffreau, now an eight-time race winner in V8GP. “I’m so happy that we managed a good Sunday after what happened yesterday.”
“It wasn’t easy to get back in focus to win. I loved it, I’m not full of joy but I felt I’m free now because it was tough to accept the results yesterday.”
In the end, Ercoli was disqualified anyway because of Alumitec Racing’s “refusal of inspections” when changing the engine that blew up in this race.
This disqualification penalty was also imposed on Ercoli’s first V8GP race, stripping the Italian from his fourth place result on Saturday.
Runner-up O’Brien was satisfied with his result, having carved his way up from tenth on the grid thanks to several daring passes in the early stages of the race.
O’Brien also revealed during the race that he “has some deals” that he will work during the summer break to increase the chances of him securing a full-time seat at Hendriks Motorsport.
Hendriks teammate Martin Doubek joined him on the podium. Like with O’Brien, Doubek made critical passes early on to transform his ninth place grid position into his second V8GP podium of 2026.
Vittorio Ghirelli had to settle for fourth, having been slowed down by his battles with Jack Davidson that left the champion with too far of a gap to the top-3 finishers.
Despite this, Ghirelli scored enough points to be crowned as the “King of Brands Hatch”, a title awarded to the V8GP driver that scored the most points at the SpeedFest.
Thomas Krasonis completed the top-5 with some battle scars from his own battle with Davidson. Vladimiros Tziortzis and Marc Goossens improved to sixth and seventh after Vinnie Meskelis was demoted to eighth.
Meskelis received two separate 5-second penalties for avoidable collisions. One of these involved Garrett Lowe, who suffered a front-right puncture as a result of this contact and subsequent off-track escapade.
Logan Bearden and Julien Rehberg completed the top-10 with Ulysse Delsaux finishing as the last car on the lead lap in 11th. Delsaux took the most positions gained bonus points after being forced to start from last as a penalty for causing the red flag on Race 1.
Ercoli was not the only one who saw his car stopping in the last five laps of the race. Davidson slowed into a retirement a lap before Ercoli did, while Davit Kajaia’s engine went pop with two laps remaining.
Mechanical issues also took out Nelson Piquet Jr., whose engine coughed up smoke after only two laps. Fabrizio Armetta and Thomas Toffel joined the retirement list with mechanical issues on their own, retiring after completing 10 and 25 laps.
After the race, Alumitec Racing publicly announced their decision to lodge an appeal for their exclusion. As a result, the official championship standings remained provisional until the results of the appeal were announced by the NASCAR Euro Series.
EuroNASCAR V8GP Race 2 Results
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