This weekend sees the final event of the 2022 TCR Europe series at the Circuit Barcelona-Catalunya, with the two-stage Qualifying session and two races set to decide the season-long battles for the Drivers’ and Teams’ championship titles.

Two of the categories have already been settled, with Marco Butti taking the 2022 Rookies’ title and Viktor Davidovski winning the Diamond Trophy. Should Franco Girolami secure the Drivers’ crown and Comtoyou Racing win the Teams’ championship, that would give the Belgian team a clean sweep of all four TCR Europe titles. 

Girolami has a relatively easy path to win the Drivers’ championship. Only Josh Files can now beat him, but the pair are separated by 89 points with a total of 96 on offer from the weekend. Should Girolami end Saturday’s Qualifying session 80 points or more ahead of the English driver, then the Argentinian will win the title. Should he fail to do that, Files would then need to win both races with Girolami failing to score in order for Files to win his second TCR Europe Drivers’ title. Despite Files being confident about his chances at Barcelona after a successful pre-season test, the odds are clearly stacked against him, although one statistic that may inspire him is the fact that Girolami’s best result in Barcelona last year was fifth place in Race 2…

Things are slightly more complicated in the fight for the Teams’ title, but Comtoyou Racing are the clear favourites to lift the trophy on Sunday night; they lead Target Competition by 114 points with Volcano Motorsport a further 9 points adrift. Mathematically, 178 points are potentially available to a team finishing first and second in both Qualifying sessions and first and second in both races and so while the Teams’ championship battle is still a three-way affair, it will take a major upset to prevent Comtoyou from reclaiming the title they won in 2020.

But while most eyes will be on the championship battles, other drivers and teams will want to end the season on a high note. Klim Gavilov, Tom Coronel, Isidro Callejas and Nicola Baldan may be out of the title fight, but any of them could still finish in second place in the standings, depending on the results of others. Coronel, Callejas, Davidovski, Jack Young and his teammate Mike Halder together with Jáchym Galáš and John Filippi will all be looking to add to the race victories they’ve scored so far this year, while the likes of Pepe Oriola and Felice Jelmini have demonstrated that they’re also more than capable of winning races.

Similarly, as far as the teams are concerned, Halder Motorsport, HYUNDAI | Janík Motorsport and Sébastien Loeb Racing – Bardahl Team have all won races in 2022 and will be keen to score at least one more victory before the season ends. With other drivers looking to score points in either the Diamond Trophy or the Rookie category, including TCR Spain title contender Alejandro Geppert who is making his TCR Europe debut, the scene is set for another exciting weekend of Touring Car racing at one of Europe’s premier racing circuits.

Event timetable

Friday, October 14^th

09.58 – 10.28 Free Practice 1

15.05 – 15.35 Free Practice 2

Saturday, October 15^th

09.45 – 10.20 Qualifying

14.05 – Race 1

Sunday, October 16^th

12.05 – Race 2

Qualifying and both races will be streamed live via the TCR Portal tcr-series.tv and on the TCR Europe social media channels