TCR Europe points tied after Eric Gené handed race two penalty
The TCR Europe Series title battle remains too close to call after Monlau Motorsport’s Eric Gené was handed a 10-second penalty following the second race at the Red Bul Ring.
Gené won the opening encounter on Saturday to move into the lead of the standings and initially extended his margin to 17 points over Marco Butti with fourth place on the road in the second race.
But contact with Jimmy Clairet on the final lap of race two, which forced Clairet to retire with front-end damage, meant that the Spaniard was penalised 10-seconds, dropping the Cupra León Competición driver to 13th.
After reviewing onboard footage from both cars, the stewards found that Gené had “tried to overtake at the apex of T10 in an optimistic manoeuvre off track and caused a collision when the car was already committing [to] the turn”.
Gené remains at the top of the standings, but is now tied on points with Butti heading into the final round of the year in Barcelona, with Teddy Clairet – who was upgraded to seventh after Gené’s penalty – is now just seven points adrift of the pair.
In total, 12 drivers are still in mathematical contention for the title at the end of the month, in what is proving to be the most hotly contested season since its inception in 2018.
Gené’s team-mate Brickley is one of the 12 drivers in with a shout of being crowned, having won race two from fourth on the grid.
The British driver was left to rue a 10-second post-race penalty of his own for his role in the multi-car accident at the start of race one but was satisfied to turn around a recent run of bad luck.
“It’s the best we could have hoped for this weekend, we came here carrying maximum ballast from our success at Misano,” Brickley said.
“Yesterday’s race went really well, it’s such a shame about the Clerks’ decision last night. I was really gutted this morning to know that I was P11 instead of P5.
“Obviously, that hurt our championship, so I’m so happy to come away with the win. I can’t thank the Monlau Motorsport team and my partners enough, without them I wouldn’t be here.”
Brickley joined Monlau Motorsport at the start of the year following a breakthrough maiden campaign in TCR Europe with his family-run outfit in 2024.
“We had to build on last year, which was so strong with our own team. Now with Monlau, we’ve had that step up, we’ve had a bit of bad luck this year with two punctures at Spa, yesterday with the decision and then things not going our way at Hockenheim. So, to get two wins is amazing.”
With 68 points still up for grabs in Barcelona, the TCR Europe Series remains all to play for.
The final round of the season will take place on the weekend of 26-27 September.
