Jenson Brickley storms through to race two victory at the Red Bull Ring

Jenson Brickley made it a Monlau Motorsport clean sweep of victories in the penultimate round of the 2025 TCR Europe Series at the Red Bull Ring as Jimmy Clairet’s title hopes took a blow after a late-race retirement.

The Cupra León Competición driver started fourth on the grid but made quick progress to run second before passing Clairet on the fifth lap of 16.

Clairet defended strongly in second for a large portion of the race before falling behind Marco Butti late on, and had looked like taking a strong haul of points. But the Team Clairet Sport Audi driver’s race ended in the gravel trap on the final lap.

That means that race one winner Eric Gené heads into the final round of the season at Barcelona with a 17-point lead over Butti in the standings, with Teddy Clairet 26 points adrift in third.

Jimmy Clairet’s own championship hopes were dented even further as he dropped behind Brickley to fifth, 37 points behind ahead of the season finale in Spain.

From reversed grid pole, Clairet got a decent getaway off the line and maintained the lead into the first corner, with fellow front-row starter Max Hart slotting into second, despite taking to the escape road.

Hart was soon passed by Jenson Brickley as the field approached for turn four, the Cupra León Competición showing strong pace to lock itself onto the bumper of race-leader Clairet from the second lap.

Behind, race one winner Gené made a good start and leapt five places to run fifth early on, with Nicolas Taylor making equally encouraging progress from ninth one place behind.

The big loser off the line was Rapahael Fournier, who dropped from third on the grid to ninth.

Before long, the lead battle had grown to five cars with Clairet heading Brickley, Hart, Butti and Gené, all separated by less than two seconds.

Brickley made a late lunge to the inside of turn three on the fifth lap and grabbed the lead after a side-by-side battle on the run to turn four. Hart also stuck his nose down the inside of the Team Clairet Sport Audi RS 3 LMS but Clairet just about hung on.

The safety car was then deployed with 15 minutes remaining after Viktor Andersson’s MA:GP Lynk & Co stopped with suspected broken steering following an overambitious manoeuvre attempt on Junesung Park at turn three.

That neutralised the lead battle, with Brickley maintaining a slender advantage at the restart from Jimmy Clairet and Butt, who had passed Hart for third.

Brickley’s advantage over the chasing pack was clear, as he opened up a gap of just over a second, with Clairet focusing more on Butti behind than the leading Cupra ahead of him.

Clairet seemingly did not have the pace to challenge for the victory, as both Butti and Hart piled on the pressure entering the closing stages.

This scrap brought Gené into the mix and the Spaniard grabbed fourth with a superb cut-back move on the exit of turn five.

Depsite resolutely defending second, Clairet simply couldn’t keep it up and slipped behind Butti to third on the penultimate lap, Butti’s pressure paying off to the inside of turn six.

Clairet had appeared to have settled for the final step on the podium but ended up in the gravel at the penultimate corner with front-right suspension damage.

That gifted Hart third place at the finish, with Gené extending his points lead further with fourth as Brickley romped to his second victory of the year from Butti by 1.6s.

Taylor finished fifth ahead of René Kircher, with Nicola Baldan seventh.

Jimmy Clairet’s late-race disappointment enabled his brother Teddy to move back into second place in the standings with eighth, while Felipe Fernández and Ruben Volt rounded out the top 10.

The next TCR Europe race is the season finale in Barcelona on September 26-27.