Vittorio Ghirelli leaves the 2025 NASCAR GP Germany as the championship leader after he beat Paul Jouffreau in Sunday’s EuroNASCAR PRO race.
Vittorio Ghirelli cemented his status as the driver to beat in EuroNASCAR PRO with his dominant victory in the second race at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben.
The Italian drove away from his rivals once he gained the lead from Liam Hezemans on lap 8. A gap of 4.548 seconds separated Ghirelli from Paul Jouffreau when he took the checkered flag, the largest margin of victory in EuroNASCAR PRO since the season opener in Valencia.
“That was awesome, what a race!” said Ghirelli in Victory Lane. “The PK Carsport #24 Camaro was absolutely dialed in today, really the whole weekend.”
“Yesterday was a heartbreak with that incident in Turn 1, but that’s racing, and I really wanted to bring this one home for my family and all my sponsors.”
“This was seriously emotional, because after a big heartbreak, you know God’s always watching from above and this is what we got. Hope we put on a good show out there, because those first few laps were wild!”
Ghirelli was on point with how wild the opening laps were. Liam passed pole sitter Jouffreau at the start by taking advantage of Oschersleben’s layout and a lap later Ghirelli also got by Jouffreau with an excellent run out of the final corner.
The race stabilized itself until lap 8, when Liam’s gearbox started to seize up. The conditions worsened for the Rette Jones Racing driver as the laps continued and it cried enough with five laps to go.
Jouffreau, now in second, was tailing Ghirelli with Liam’s eventual descent to retirement. However, he settled for second once the Frenchman saw that he had nothing to respond to Ghirelli’s pace.
The third place battle was contested between Martin Doubek and Garrett Lowe. Lowe had the upper hand early, but Doubek benefitted from better tires and made the decisive overtake at Hasseroder to grab the podium away from the American with seven laps to go.
Claudio Remigio Cappelli finished fifth to bring home a double top-5 result in Germany. Following a rough regular season, Cappelli finally hit his stride at the track where he secured his first EuroNASCAR OPEN win last year.
Cappelli worked hard to defend his top-5 position from a fast charging Bruno Mulders. The 17-year old blitzed his way through practically the whole field, having started from 22nd as a result of his opening lap incident on Saturday.
Such was Mulders’ pace that he was already in the top-10 after only three laps. His Oschersleben performance across both classes established the Dutchman’s potential as a future champion in the making.
Gianmarco Ercoli was seventh on the line, but dropped to tenth in the final classifications after he gained a penalty for missing the Turn 9 chicane. Sebastiaan Bleekemolen, Thomas Toffel and Jack Davidson all gained a position as a result.
Raphael Lessard was not so fortunate on Sunday. The Canadian struggled with tire wear and could only finish 14th, having also gained the chicane penalty in the process.
Equally unfortunate is Thomas Krasonis, who saw his title chances evaporate when the No. 13 Costamare Inc. Camaro grinded to a halt on lap 3.
Michal Makeš and Giovanni Faraonio both received a penalty for not following the proper start procedures. Makeš dropped from 13th to 17th, while Faraonio was unaffected because he was the last car still running in 20th position.
EuroNASCAR PRO Race 2 Results
EuroNASCAR PRO Championship Standings
After a weekend of contrasting fortunes for the primary contenders, three drivers became the strongest candidates for the 2025 EuroNASCAR championship title.
Vittorio Ghirelli regained the advantage as his victory was enough to propel the Italian back to the lead. With 382 points, Ghirelli holds a four point advantage to Paul Jouffreau in second with Gianmarco Ercoli another 14 points behind in third.
Garrett Lowe moves up to fourth after his excellent result in Bremotion’s home race. However, with 46 points separating him from Ghirelli, there needed to be a miracle for the American to have a chance at the title in Zolder.
Thomas Krasonis and Liam Hezemans’ retirements on Sunday dropped both drivers down to fifth and sixth respectively. Sebastiaan Bleekemolen in seventh is level on points with Liam, but lost out on the best finish tiebreaker thanks to Liam’s Saturday victory.
Martin Doubek, Vladimiros Tziortzis and Claudio Remigio Cappelli completed the top-10 positions. Raphaël Lessard is ranked 23rd overall while Giovanni Faraonio and Alexander Graff ends up 27th and 28th after their first appearances of the season.
Full EuroNASCAR PRO Championship Standings
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