Series points lead up for grabs as TCR Europe heads to Zandvoort

For the first time since 2018, TCR Europe will visit the twisty, high-speed circuit of Zandvoort in the Dutch sand dunes for the third round of the 2021 season, with Volcano Motorsport’s Mikel Azcona atop the standings.

Azcona will, however, be absent this weekend due to his conflicting PURE ETCR race at Vallelunga, which means the likes of Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehdi Bennani and Team Clairet Sport’s Jimmy Clairet could close the deficit to the Cupra driver by the end of the weekend.

Zandvoort offers a different sort of challenge than the opening two rounds in Slovakia and at Paul Ricard for the teams and drivers, with a mix of high-speed sweeping turns combining with tight and twisty, slow-speed corners at the beginning of the lap.

This will also be the first time TCR Europe will race at the circuit since its 2019 renovation ahead of the proposed Dutch Grand Prix last year, with banking featuring at Hugenholtz and Arie Luyandijk corners.

Following his maiden TCR Europe series victory in Race 2 at Paul Ricard, Jimmy Clairet, will enter the Zandvoort weekend with 30kg of compensation weight in his Peugeot 308TCR, while brother Teddy who also secured his first series win in the opening race in France cops the full 60kg in his.

Three of the four SLR Hyundai Elantra N TCR cars will also have 60kg, with Bennani, Sami Taoufik and Felice Jelmini running the full ballast. The fourth, of Niels Langeveld joins Teddy Clairet on 30kg.

The Audi RS 3 LMS, which suffered a miserable weekend at Paul Ricard should be on course for better fortunes this weekend at Zandvoort, as every one of the cars will be running with 0kg of compensation weight. The fast long-radius corners between Scheivlak and Turn 11 should favour the Audi.

After failing to capitalise on their strong qualifying pace in France, the PSS Racing Honda Civic Type-R TCRs of Franco Girolami and Viktor Davidovski will be looking to make an impact with just 10kg of compensation weight.

Girolami currently sits just one point behind Jimmy Clairet in the standings, with Davidovski 11th, tied with Comtoyou Racing’s Dušan Borković.

Borković and his Audi cohorts will no doubt be looking at Zandvoort at their chance of a breakthrough result this season having struggled for results early on.

Tom Coronel and Nicolas Baert are fifth and sixth in the points respectively, albeit not far off second-placed Bennani on 83 and 64 points.

While Azcona misses this weekend’s round in the Netherlands, there is a return to action for Zengo Motorsport’s Dáni Nagy who was forced out of last month’s visit to Paul Ricard.

Elsewhere, Gustav Birch makes his first TCR Europe Series start in Brianmadsen Sport entered Peugeot 308TCR, making the short trip across the border from his native Denmark where he is contesting the full TCR Denmark season.

The weekend kicks off with the first free practice session which is scheduled to start on Friday 18th June at 12:30 CEST. The second session will take place later in the day, at 16:40. Both sessions will last 30 minutes.

Then it’s onto qualifying on Saturday 19th June, which is due to start at 11:25, with Race 1 scheduled to start at 17:20. Sunday’s final race of the weekend is scheduled to begin at 13:10.