In a weekend that was described by the team as a “champions” debut, Double V Racing and Pierluigi Veronesi exceeded the team’s expectations at NASCAR GP Spain as Veronesi showcases the team’s potential by claiming a double Top-5 finish for the No. 27 team at Valencia.
NASCAR Whelen Euro Series’ newest team Double V Racing enjoyed a successful debut race on NASCAR GP Spain after team owner Pierluigi Veronesi secured a double Top-5 finish in what the team described as a “champions debut” at Valencia.
Given that the team only announced their plans to compete with less than two weeks before the season started and had no time to test their car until Friday morning of race week, the results that Double V and Veronesi achieved at Valencia showcased the team’s competitiveness and potential to achieve a Top-5 finish in the overall standings this year.
“I’m really happy with this weekend of races, the team gave its best and put me in the right conditions to reach the top 5 in both races,” said Veronesi in the team’s official post-race press release. “For me and for the team, it was an unthinkable result given that the team was born only three weeks ago and we showed up in Valencia with no testing and I wasn’t competing for a year.”
Double V’s potential was shown right from Friday’s Practice session as Veronesi’s fastest time of 1:43.705 was enough to place him fifth in the combined timesheets on his first laps on a EuroNASCAR car since 2019. Veronesi’s good form continued on Qualifying after he qualified the No. 27 Double V Ford in fifth place with a time of 1:43.929, just 0.116 seconds behind Francesco Garisto’s Shadow in the battle for “best of the rest”.
The races continued to showcased Veronesi and Double V’s good form on their debut weekend as Veronesi finished fourth in Race 1 and fifth in Race 2 to bring home a double Top-5 finish. The results at Valencia puts Veronesi in fourth place on the overall standings, just behind the all-conquering trio of Martin Doubek, Tobias Dauenhauer, and Vladimiros Tziortzis.
Veronesi admits that maintaining the strong results achieved at Valencia is going to be tough, but he is confident that the team and Solaris Motorsport – whom Double V had a technical alliance with – will be able to achieve the maximum results possible.
“It will be very hard to maintain these top positions but I’m confident for the future because the team has shown ability and commitment to achieve the objectives thanks to the valuable contribution of Solaris Motorsport in the race field, which for me is already like a second family that made me feel immediately at home,” further said Veronesi on the press release.
For team co-owner Francesco Vignali, the results at Valencia exceeded his expectations given the team’s lack of preparation and its status as a series debutant coming to the Valencia season opener.
“It’s really incredible what the team and Pierluigi did this weekend!” said Vignali in the press release. “I was aware of our potential but honestly, considering the handicap of a lack of testing and being a team at the debut, our goals were less ambitious. We thought of finishing in the Top-10, but everything went in the best way as not only we finished Top-5 in both races, but we also finished first among the Italian teams and drivers in both races.”
“The championship is still long and we are aware that we will face hard moments as seen with what happened to Francesco Sini in this unlucky weekend, but I strongly believe in Double V Racing’s and Pierluigi’s skills, who have shown their full potential already from Valencia with a very positive approach and without sparing anything.”
Disclaimer: Unless noted, all photos used in this article are courtesy of NASCAR Whelen Euro Series / Stephane Azemard / Bart Dehaese.
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