Liam Hezemans delivers Rette Jones Racing’s maiden EuroNASCAR win after he avoided the carnage in the first NASCAR GP Germany race at Oschersleben.
NASCAR Euro Series promises excitement and action for the Playoffs and the first race of the 2025 NASCAR GP Germany certainly delivered on what’s being advertised.
A crazy opening lap crash, triggered by front row starters Vittorio Ghirelli and Gianmarco Ercoli, opened the path for Liam Hezemans to grab his first victory in the 2025 EuroNASCAR PRO season.
Liam’s win is his first for the debuting Rette Jones Racing outfit. Rette Jones became the first American team to win in the top class, and just the second overall after Go Fas Racing achieved the feat in 2018 in EuroNASCAR OPEN.
The opening lap incident was Liam’s winning ticket, which became a reality after Ghirelli and Ercoli made contact as they raced to the Hotel corner.
That sent them into the path of fourth place starter Bruno Mulders, who had no time to react and tagged Ghirelli’s rear end.
Ghirelli’s spinning No. 24 infitto.eu Camaro ended up in the middle of the track, causing a further chain reaction.
Sebastiaan Bleekemolen, Fabrizio Armetta, Michal Makeš, Martin Doubek, Davit Kajaia, Alexander Graff, Julien Rehberg and Ulysse Delsaux were all collected. Graff and Mulders retired on the spot, while the rest continued with varying levels of damage.
After a lengthy caution period, Liam led the field to the green flag ahead from Thomas Toffel and Jack Davidson. Toffel and Davidson fight to stay in the podium allowed Liam to build a six second advantage that wouldn’t be assailed by his rivals.
“Of course, this was a bit lucky, but to finish first, first you have to finish!” said Hezemans in Victory Lane. “It’s time to try and win again tomorrow. Big congrats to the Rette Jones and Hendriks Motorsport teams for the awesome job they do.”
“My spotters told me to keep it cool and bring the car home. At the end I was pushing for the fastest lap, but the tires overheated and wore down.”
The battle for second became a four-way tussle once Garrett Lowe and Paul Jouffreau joined the fight. Toffel, Davidson, Lowe and Jouffreau fought for lap after lap, but mistakes from the first two secured Lowe and Jouffreau’s podium finishes.
Lowe was relieved with his result following a scare in the restart where he had to avoid Sebastiaan Bleekemolen on the grass. Sebastiaan was tagged by Giorgio Maggi into a spin.
Jouffreau was equally relieved, with the Frenchman saying post-race that he chose to drive on the grass to avoid the opening lap incident. Saving his car there also allowed Jouffreau to grab the fastest lap of the race.
Toffel finished the race in a lonely fourth. However, the Swiss driver was so far ahead of Claudio Remigio Cappelli in fifth that he still took the Challenger Trophy win even after having two off-track excursions.
Raphaël Lessard finished his debut EuroNASCAR race in an impressive sixth position. The Canadian was fortunate to not get collected in the opening lap incident, as did Vladimiros Tziortzis who grabbed the bonus points for most positions gained in seventh.
Ghirelli was initially credited with an eighth place finish, but post-race penalties dropped the reigning champion down to 13th. Teammate Thomas Krasonis took over Ghirelli’s spot in the final result.
Ercoli recovered to ninth ahead of Kajaia, who held on to the top-10 positions despite having a five second penalty for forcing Cappelli off the track.
Ghirelli’s penalty promoted Delsaux and Kenko Miura up to 11th and 12th respectively. Davidson was only 14th after he had a rallycross moment midway through the race.
Giovanni Faraonio bravely held on to seventh in the early stages in the race. Unfortunately for the Italian, he lost five places in a single corner and then had a spin after making contact with Ghirelli. He eventually finished 15th on his top class debut.
Rehberg dropped a lap down after making an unscheduled stop for an unsecured hood. Doubek lost three laps because he was stuck on the hood of Graff’s car, while Sebastiaan lost four laps to make extended repairs on his Team Bleekemolen machine.
Makeš was forced to retire from too much crash damage. Fabrizio Armetta looked like he managed to escape relatively unscathed, but the opening lap incident killed his suspension and he retired shortly after the restart.
EuroNASCAR PRO Race 1 Results
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.