Jimmy Clairet fends off Eric Gené to win opening TCR Europe race at Portimão

Jimmy Clairet converted pole position into victory in the opening race of the 2025 TCR Europe season at Portimão, prevailing in a race-long battle with Eric Gené.

Both Clairet and Gené were the class of the field all race, breaking clear of the chasing pack and never split by more than a second throughout.

Manlou Motorsport’s Jenson Brickley claimed the final step on the podium in third, staving off a similarly fierce assault from Teddy Clairet in the closing stages.

Having narrowly taken pole position in the morning’s qualifying session, Clairet maintained his lead off the start as Felice Jelmini fending off the attention of Eric Gené to hold onto second at turn one.

Jelmini’s race soon unravelled as both he and Marco Butti’s Honda Civic Type-R came to blows at turn four, each taking a trip through the gravel before pitting at the end of the opening lap.

That allowed Clairet to establish a healthy margin at the head of the field, but the Frenchman in the Audi was quickly caught by Gené’s Honda Civic as the pair leapt clear of Jenson Brickley’s Cupra in the early stages.

Amid the squabbling on the first lap, a number of drivers made significant ground from lowly grid positions, namely Ruben Volt (up eight positions), reigning TCR Italy champion Nic Taylor (up nine) and Nicola Baldan (up nine), all of whom ran strongly inside the top 10 early on.

Behind the leading duo, Brickley headed an entertaining scrap for third ahead of Teddy Clairet and Volt, with just a second splitting the three cars entering the final 1o minutes. Unfortunately for Volt, he dropped out of that fight with just a handful of laps left with a mechanical issue, leaving Brickely and Clairet to duke it out for the final step on the podium,

Up at the front, Jimmy Clairet did just enough to keep Gené at bay and never seriously looked like losing his race-long lead despite the latter remaining under a second adrift of the Audi.

Clairet took the victory by just half a second from Gené while Brickley secured third place on the line by the same margin from Teddy Clairet in his Cupra León Competición.

Behind Clairet, Taylor finished fifth ahead of Baldan, while MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson produced a strong recovery drive to finish seventh, passing series returnee Julien Briché’s Hyundai Elantra N TCR on the final lap.

Junesung Park was ninth, while Aikoa Racing’s Filippo Barberi profited from a late incident for Santiago Concepción to round out the top 10.

Race two at Portimão is scheduled to take place tomorrow at 11:50 local time