Thomas Toffel inherits his and Race Art Technology’s first EuroNASCAR OPEN victory in Valencia after Raphaël Lessard suffered a late-race electronic problem.
Thomas Toffel achieved a breakthrough victory after a fortuitous, but equally commanding result in the season opening EuroNASCAR OPEN race at Valencia.
The Swiss driver was the only driver to be able to keep up with Raphaël Lessard, who looked set to maintain Alumitec Racing’s dominating streak in the 2026 Valencia NASCAR Fest.
However, with five laps to go, the power switch in Lessard’s car came loose. Toffel gained the lead shortly after when the No. 11 Alumitec Racing Ford shut down temporarily.
With an eight second advantage to Gil Linster, Toffel maintained his lead to bring home the No. 34 ERGON Project Camaro to the Victory Lane.
The victory was not only Toffel’s first in his EuroNASCAR career. It was also the first win for Race Art Technology, ending their eight-year quest for the elusive first victory.
“I feel really good and it was a special race,” said Toffel in Victory Lane. “I had a bit of luck that Lessard had issues.”
“He had a really good pace but I think we have what it takes to match his speed and fight with him tomorrow. In the OPEN we will be there for sure to fight for the title.”
Lessard finished in 14th, having suffered a second shut down moment after he recovered back to the top-10 positions.
The Canadian rued this unfortunate moment post-race, but remained confident with his prospects as he had secured the fastest lap to clinch pole position in Race 2.
“My switches came loose,” explained Lessard in an interview posted on EuroNASCAR’s Instagram Story. “There must be a defect or something because my ignition turned off.”
“Everything turned off and I couldn’t put [the switch] back, so I started playing with the wires and it fired back on after I stopped. I passed the guys ahead, then it turned off again. That was my race, I was managing as best as I could! I could have won the thing, but we’ll get it tomorrow.”
Linster was followed by Claudio Remigio Cappelli, who charged his way up from 17th on the grid to bring home the silverware.
In true Cappelli fashion, he gained his podium in style. The Italian pulled a textbook block-and-pass on Melvin de Groot at the Doohan corner to secure the rostrum on the last lap.
Cappelli’s charge was aided by two separate opening lap incidents that brought out the Safety Car. The incidents began when Valentino Gambarotto missed his braking point at Turn 1, resulting in a collision with Martin Doubek and Sandro Tavartkiladze.
Vladimiros Tziortzis then locked up his rear axle and spun the No. 6 Capital.com Ford around at the next corner. In trying to avoid the Cypriot’s stricken machine, Ossi Pohjanharju swerved in the path of Florian Richard.
Doubek, Tavartkiladze, Pohjanharju and Richard all retired on the spot as did Kenko Miura, who stalled his Team Japan Needs24 Toyota after spinning it to avoid the first corner incident.
Tziortzis recovered to fifth, having restarted from the tail end of the field. Michael Bleekemolen scored his career best finish in sixth, a remarkable achievement for the 75-year old Dutchman.
Gambarotto crossed the line right behind him, but he received a 60-second time penalty for his role in the opening lap incident. Giovanni Faraonio would have been the next in line, but he also got a 20-second time penalty for overtaking under yellow flags.
This resulted in Maxim van Laere scoring an impressive seventh place finish on his EuroNASCAR OPEN debut. Right behind the Belgian is Vanessa “Happinessa” Neumann, who scored her maiden top-10 finish in eighth.
Faraonio was classified in ninth, which was still the Italian’s career first top-10 result. The same feat was also achieved by Federico Monti, who grabbed his first top-10 in tenth.
Eleventh place finisher Francesco Leogrande missed on a chance to score his maiden top-10 finish after he made an unforced spin at Angel Nieto corner on lap 10.
Henri Timonen, Gambarotto and Lessard completed the lead lap finishers with Andre Lortie finishing a lap behind, having been running at a pace 17 seconds slower than the leaders.
Beitske Visser bravely competed with no power steering in her No. 77 BS+ Competition / AspiraX Camaro, but she retired when her car stopped at Champi Herreros with two laps to go.
The same power steering issue also affected teammate Dominique Schaak, who retired after 10 laps. Thomas Dombrowski blew his rear axle while Mariam Davitidze was a non-starter as a knock-on effect to the engine issues that Davit Kajaia suffered in the preceding V8GP race.
EuroNASCAR OPEN Race 1 Results
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.