Jenson Brickley took a confident win in the second race of the TCR Europe series season opener at Portimão, getting into the lead from second on the reversed grid ahead of former TCR UK competitor Max Hart, and controlled the pace to the finish, and finds himself three points behind Jimmy Clairet in the drivers’ standings, and also with a comfortable lead in the Youth Best category.

After a strong race on Saturday in which he went from ninth to second, he followed that up with his first win in only his fourth race start in the series on Sunday, and despite a mid-race safety car closing up the pack, he had the race under control.

“I don’t want to say it was easy, but it wasn’t particularly hard,” said Brickley.

“I finally mastered my start, went straight into the lead - and so I pushed on the first lap to get a bit of a gap. When the safety car came out I thought oh no, but then I had a great restart after the safety car.”

Brickley’s just three points behind Jimmy Clairet in the standings, and has a 16-point lead over Viktor Andersson in the young drivers’ category for 21 and under.

“It’s definitely going to be a good fight this year, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year holds,” added Brickley. “It’s a shame I didn’t do very well in qualifying, but we’ve had two really good races here.”