Alon Day answered Loris Hezemans’ Valencia domination with a stellar performance at the Indy Circuit of Brands Hatch and scored his 25th career win in EuroNASCAR PRO, the first after returning to CAAL Racing. The driver of the #88 Monster Energy Chevrolet Camaro started from Pole Position and defended his lead over the course of the 38 laps against Valencia double winner Hezemans and his #7 Hendriks Motorsport Ford Mustang. Behind the top-2 the battles were intense and spectacular.
EURONASCAR PRO RESULTS: PRACTICE | FINAL PRACTICE | QUALIFYING | STARTING GRID | ROUND 3
Day made a perfect start and managed to defend his lead against a charging Hezemans, but the Dutchman never had a chance to make a move on his arch-rival. Day opened the solid gap on Hezemans and cruised to his fourth Brands Hatch win in a EuroNASCAR car. For CAAL Racing it was the 30th EuroNASCAR PRO win and it came on the track where they got their first win in 2014.
“It’s incredible to have 25 career victories now”, Day said right after the race. “It’s nice to do it with CAAL Racing, the team I’ve won two championships and scored 21 race wins with. What can I say? The team did a great job and the car was amazing. Loris was pushing me in the first part of the race but then I realized that the gap was getting bigger. I decided to save the tires for tomorrow. I know that I will not start from pole tomorrow, but we will handle that.”
Hezemans ended up second after a solid run at the wheel of his Ford Mustang and posted the fastest lap of the race, grabbing the pole for EuroNASCAR PRO Round 4.
The battle for third was just amazing: A total of six drivers were dueling for the last spot on the podium during all laps of the race. It was DF1 Racing’s Nicolo Rocca, who was third under the checkered flag and scored his second EuroNASCAR PRO podium of the season. Starting from sixth, reigning EuroNASCAR 2 Champion Vittorio Ghirelli finished fourth just 0.203 seconds behind his fellow countryman from Italy.
Sebastiaan Bleekemolen closed the top-5 with another solid run at the wheel of the #69 Ford Mustang. The Dutchman scored his first NWES podium in Valencia and is becoming a true frontrunner in Europe’s official NASCAR Championship. Day’s teammate Gianmarco Ercoli followed in sixth, also topping the Junior Trophy standings. Frederic Gabillon finished seventh ahead of Giorgio Maggi and Simon Pilate, who closed the Junior Trophy podium, while returnee Alexander Graff, who was involved in the battle for third the whole race long, shuffled down to tenth due to a 10-second penalty for not respecting the track limits. The same fate befell Lucas Lasserre, who dropped down to twelfth.
DF1 Racing’s Henri Tuomaala won the race in the Challenger Trophy classification for bronze and silver drivers in the EuroNASCAR PRO Championship. It was a tough race for the Finn, who had to defend his position against Davide Dallara and Yevgen Sokolovskiy, who rounded out the Challenger Trophy podium. NWES returnee Scott Jeffs didn’t have the best luck: the Brit was involved in an accident on lap 36 and his #46 Marko Stipp Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro ended up in the barriers.
The EuroNASCAR PRO will be back in action on Sunday at 1:40 pm CET. On Saturday, the EuroNASCAR 2 Round 3 will take place at 4:45 CET at the famous Brands Hatch Circuit. All races of the NASCAR GP UK will be broadcasted live on EuroNASCAR’s social media plattform – YouTube, Facebook, Twitch – and Motorsport.tv.
NWES PR
