Paul Jouffreau took his third V8GP win of 2026 by beating Garrett Lowe in a race-long showdown between the two Junior Trophy frontrunners.
Paul Jouffreau finds his way back to the Victory Lane after he held off a late surging Garrett Lowe in the first V8GP Finals race at Circuit Zolder.
Jouffreau took advantage of an early caution to get past Lowe – who started the race from pole position – on the restart. The caution was triggered as a result of Giovanni Cartechini’s crash with Jack Davidson on the opening lap.
Jouffreau did not have it easy in the race as Lowe was able to keep his BS+Competition sponsored No. 99 Bremotion Camaro in the sights of the Frenchman for the whole race.
“Lowe did a great job, he was fast at the end!” said Jouffreau in the Victory Lane. “When I dived into turn one, I was so happy because it was a good dive”
“I wasn’t keeping up my pace and I think he will have some good tires for tomorrow, so there will be another good race for us tomorrow for sure.”
“The race was well managed, so this win is for my team, my family, my sponsors and all of my friends! This year was really tough with a lot of ups and downs and we learned a lot on how to perform in this environment, so I’m happy.”
Jouffreau dedicated his win to people affected by breast cancer. He revealed that his mom is currently battling breast cancer and placed the pink ribbon on the No. 3 RDV Competition Ford in honor of the battle that her mom is facing.
Sebastiaan Bleekemolen completed the podium after a race-long battle with Gianmarco Ercoli. A slight technical issue made it hard for Sebastiaan to try and defend from Ercoli, but a lucky encounter with Andre Lortie at Villeneuve chicane opened enough gap for the Dutchman to cruise home to the finish.
Marc Goossens converted his fourth place start to a top-5 finish, his first in two years. “The Goose” kept Nelson Piquet Jr. and Vittorio Ghirelli at bay, the latter greatly minimizing his losses since he had to start from 15th on the grid.
Vinnie Meskelis, Vladimiros Tziortzis and Jordan O’Brien rounded out the top-10. In contrast to Ghirelli, Thomas Krasonis was only able to finish 12th after early-race contact with Brad Ranson gave him handling issues.
The contact also gave Ranson body damage on his No. 33 Komcan Komori / Infrastar Camaro. Similar to Ulysse Delsaux’s situation at Vallelunga, a lot of the bodywork would end up getting torn off when a pocket of air managed to get inside the gap that the damage had created.
Logan Bearden took the Challenger Trophy win in 13th, but he was not satisfied with his overall result, having admitted post-race that he’s here to “not become a field filler”.
The Texan won the Trophy from Davit Kajaia and Pim van Riet, who finished 14th and 16th respectively.
Outside of Cartechini and Davidson, only one other driver failed to finish the 18-lap race. Thomas Toffel, who is also competing for the EuroNASCAR OPEN title, elected to start and park to preserve his No. 34 ERGON Project Camaro for his OPEN title showdown.
Toffel decided to enter the pits at the opening lap and only went out again for a few laps when he had enough track space to set a fast lap time.
V8GP Race 1 Results
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.