Néstor Girolami wins action-packed second Valencia race

Néstor Girolami claimed the first Hyundai victory of 2025 in the second FIA TCR World Tour race of the weekend at Valencia in Spain.

John Filippi (Cupra) took the lead from the reversed grid pole position at the start, with Honda driver Felipe Fernández in second and Girolami in third.

Girolami was on the move early on and overtook Fernández for second place on lap two.

Esteban Guerrieri then overtook team-mate Fernández for third, with Lynk & Co driver Thed Björk also taking advantage to gain a position.

Reigning champion Norbert Michelisz then attacked the Swede, something that instead enabled Ruben Volt to overtake them both for fourth place.

Girolami overtook Filippi for the lead on lap three.

GOAT Racing’s Ignacio Montenegro, who started from the back of the grid, was recovering ground and overtook Race 1 winner Santiago Urrutia for tenth place on lap five.

Michelisz and Björk came together on lap five, with the Hungarian driver going off the track and lost several positions.

The same lap saw Volt overtaking Fernández for fourth position started to reel in Guerrieri and the Estonian driver soon made the move stick for third place as well.

Ehrlacher overtook Fernández for fifth position on lap nine at the same time as Montenegro claimed eighth position from Azcona. Ehrlacher then passed Guerrieri for fourth place.

Montenegro attacked Björk on lap eleven for seventh place, with Azcona following suit as Björk lost another place to Cyan Racing team-mate Urrutia.

Volt had closed the gap to Filippi, launching a first attack on the Cupra driver for second place on lap 12. The Estonian driver gained the position on the following lap, with Filippi also losing a place to Ehrlacher.

The Cupra driver tried to get back past the Lynk & Co driver a couple of corners later, tapping Ehrlacher sideways briefly in the final corner of the lap.

Ehrlacher managed to stay ahead and started to gain on Volt in the fight for second place, but there was not enough laps for the Cyan Racing driver to get past.

Fernández received a five-second time penalty for track limits infringements, dropping him down to 13th place.

Girolami claimed Hyundai’s first FIA TCR World Tour win of 2025, one second ahead of Volt and two seconds ahead of Ehrlacher who completed the podium.

Filippi was fourth, followed by Guerrieri, Montenero and Azcona in seventh place. Urrutia, Björk and Ma completed the top ten.

The result has seen Guerrieri back in the points lead on 125 points, three more than Ehrlacher and four more ahead of Urrutia who headed the standings ahead of this race.

The FIA TCR World Tour field returns to the track for Race 3 at 15:30 CEST today.