Girolami heads a Comtoyou 1-2-3 in TCR Europe’s last race
Franco Girolami rounded off an incredible TCR Europe campaign for Comtoyou Racing by taking his fourth victory of the season in the last race at Barcelona-Catalunya. With Tom Coronel finishing second and Frédéric Vervisch third, the podium was a lockout for the Belgian team. The result also meant that Coronel moved ahead of Josh Files to end second in the Drivers’ championship.
At the start, pole-sitter John Filippi was first to T1 with Vervisch briefly in P2, making up three places after starting from fifth. There was contact between Vervisch and Pepe Oriola but both drivers continued. Girolami moved up to third ahead of Vervisch before he went up the inside of both Oriola and Filippi to take the lead.
There were several incidents and Filippi ended up in the gravel at T7 after contact with Jack Young, the safety car was deployed to recover his car.
Racing resumed on Lap 5 with Coronel attacking Oriola for third place. On Lap 7, Oriola appeared to pick up a puncture going down to T1 and pulled onto the grass, which resulted in the safety car’s second intervention.
Racing got underway again on Lap 9 and Coronel passed Vervisch for P2, while Young moved into P5 after passing Klim Gavrilov who then made contact with Files. The Briton half-spun into the gravel and rejoined at the back of the field, while Gavrilov dropped down to P12.
Over the final few laps, the leading places didn’t change, although Halder closed up to within three-tenths of Vervisch. Girolami took his fourth win of the season by a margin of 1.3 seconds over Coronel with Vervisch hanging on to finish third ahead of Halder, Young and Callejas. After the race, Gavrilov was given a ten-second penalty for the incident with Files, which dropped him to P17.
Barcelona – Race 2
1. Franco Girolami (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 14 laps
2. Tom Coronel (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 1.332
3. Frédéric Vervisch (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS), 5.686
Championship points
1. F. Girolami 431 pts; 2. T. Coronel 316; 3. J. Files 285
Picture: TCR Europe
