Thomas Krasonis put one hand in the EuroNASCAR OPEN championship trophy after he claimed his sixth win of the 2025 season on Saturday.
Thomas Krasonis has all but clinched the title in the EuroNASCAR OPEN division. The Greek comfortably led all 15 laps of the Saturday race at Circuit Zolder to put him within reach of his first championship victory.
Krasonis’ path to victory was made possible after a crucial first corner incident involving pole sitter Thomas Toffel. Toffel overcooked the corner and spun his No. 34 Chevrolet Camaro around, handing the lead over to Krasonis.
Krasonis then never looked back, managing his pace from a race-long challenge by Bruno Mulders to secure his sixth EuroNASCAR OPEN win of 2025.
With a gap of 45 points to Doubek and the “non-championship” situation where Nick Strickler, Reza Sardeha and Francesco Leogrande will not be able to steal any points away from the championship regulars, all Krasonis need to do on Sunday is to start the race and the title is officially his.
“This was what we needed today,” said Krasonis in Victory Lane. “From what I understand, tomorrow we basically just need to finish one lap to get the title, but I don’t want to say a lot of things.”
“I just want to say that it’s been a very big effort. Without the help of my sponsors, my trainer, my driving coach, my team and my amazing family, this effort wouldn’t be possible. I want to party, but let’s finish it first tomorrow morning.”
Mulders’ challenge faltered on the last lap. A missed gear shift allowed Martin Doubek to make the pass for second place, but Mulders held on to the final podium position to secure another Master Trophy win.
Thomas Dombrowski and Sandro Tavartkiladze completed the top-5 ahead of Gil Linster. Behind them, there was a close battle for the Legend Trophy victory between its two main contenders Melvin de Groot and Claudio Remigio Cappelli.
De Groot and Cappelli were interlocked in a race-long duel. Both drivers traded paint, but fought fairly and brought a good show for the Belgian race fans.
Valentino Gambarotto and Dominique Schaak rounded out the top-10. Strickler would have got a top-10 finish on his return to the series, but a 5-second time penalty for speeding under FCY relegated the American to 11th place.
The FCY was brought upon on lap 8, when Toffel crashed out of the race at the Kleine chicane. Toffel was rapidly catching up to the leaders after his first corner spin when he took the kerbs too much at Kleine, sending his car into the tire stack that marked the track limits.
The incident compounded Toffel’s issues on Saturday, as he started EuroNASCAR PRO’s start incident that took Paul Jouffreau out of the title race. Jouffreau was critical of Toffel afterwards, as said in his interview with Andre Wiegold.
“It’s always the same guy that made that,” said Jouffreau. “He already did that a lot of times this year and the year past.”
“To be honest, I don’t understand how you can have that type of behavior and be in the European championship. We are professional drivers, we have to learn from mistakes and he didn’t.”
“I will not say bad words and you can be sure that it’ll be a lot of work from my side to not say that.”
The repairs on Jouffreau’s No. 3 RDV Competition Camaro was completed during the day, but not quick enough for Patrick Schober to start the race in time.
Schober did his best to get a fast lap for a good starting position on Sunday. His best lap time of 1:38.634 was good enough to secure ninth place on the grid.
EuroNASCAR OPEN Race 1 Results
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