All to play for between Mikel Azona and Franco Girolami in TCR Europe title decider
For the second time in TCR Europe series history, the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya will play host to the final round of the year, with the drivers’ title still very much up for grabs.
Volcano Motorsport’s Mikel Azcona head into the weekend with a 53-point margin (in reality, 60 points as Girolami drops his lowest score of seven) over his nearest championship rival, Franco Girolami following a hotly contested, and controversial penultimate meeting of the season at Monza.
With 90 points available across qualifying and the two races over the weekend, the title battle go either way but it remains a straight shoot-out between Girolami and Azcona, with third-placed Tom Coronel out of contention.
Azcona will have his hands full as he is also racing in the WTCR weekend at Most in the Czech Republic this weekend.
PSS Racing’s Girolami enjoyed a near-perfect weekend at Monza, securing maximum points in qualifying and taking victory in the opening encounter from Azcona.
The Honda Civic Type-R TCR driver thought he had completed a stunning double triumph in Race 2, but the Argentinian was stripped of his victory following a steward’s investigation post-race.
Girolami had come under fire for allegedly going ‘over the sporting limits’ and he was subsequently penalised for overtaking Azcona under yellow flag, following a complaint from Azcona’s Volcano Motorsport team.
The penalty had huge title implications as it dropped Girolami from first to 19th, while also elevating Azcona up a position to fourth.
Barcelona is also the venue where Azcona clinched the TCR Europe title in 2018, and is a circuit both the Spaniard and the Cupra has historically been strong at.
There are various other subplots also playing out on the final weekend of the year at Barcelona, most notably the battle to secure third in the standings.
Comtoyou Racing Audi’s Tom Coronel currently occupies this position on 255 points, 13 ahead of Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Niels Langeveld, who is still looking for his first TCR Europe Series victory.
Behind this pair is Jimmy Clairet in fifth, on 207 points, just five clear of outgoing champion Mehdi Bennani while Comtoyou Racing’s Nicolas Baert and Dušan Borković not too far behind on 197 and 192 respectively.
A total of 24 cars will contest the season finale, with RC2 Junior Team again running a pair of Cupra León Competición cars, for Sergio López while Felipe Fernández replaces his brother Rubén in the second car.
TCR Eastern Europe regular Giacomo Ghermandi will make his Europe Series debut this weekend in a LEMA Racing Cupra, with Klim Gavrilov making the switch from a VRC-Team Audi RS 3 LMS to join Azcona and Evgenii Leonov at Volcano Motorsport.
The action kicks off as usual with two 30-minute free practice sessions on Friday 8th October. FP1 is scheduled to take place at 12:10 while FP2 will start at 16:20.
Then it’s onto qualifying on Saturday 9th, which will take place at 10:40 before the first race of the weekend later that day at 15:40. Race 2 will conclude the season on Sunday at 13:45.
