Comtoyou Racing’s Franco Girolami took his third victory of the season in Race 2 at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, moving to within a handful of points of securing the 2022 TCR Europe Drivers’ championship title as a result. Klim Gavrilov finished second in his Volcano Motorsport CUPRA Leon Competición and Sergio López scored his and the RC2 Junior Team’s best result of the season by completing the podium places in third.

At the start, Girolami quickly passed Felipe Fernández and Sergio López to go into the Turn 1 chicane in second place behind pole-sitter Gavrilov. Behind the leaders, several drivers made up places in the run down to the chicane, including Nicola Baldan who leapt from ninth on the grid to lie in third behind Girolami, but Race Control quickly reported a number of drivers were under investigation for Turn 1 incuding Baldan, Tom Coronel, Michelle Halder and Josh Files, who’d moved up to ninth position after starting from P12.

On Lap 2, Girolami passed Gavrilov for the lead as the cars approached the chicane, but when Isidro Callejas was forced to abandon his CUPRA on the kerbs with broken steering, the Safety Car was called into action so the car could be recovered. Racing resumed on Lap 5 and immediately there was contact between Michele Imberti and John Filippi going into Turn 1. Felice Jelmini passed his Target Competition teammate Files for P10 before Jáchym Galáš also passed Files for P11. Jelmini then passed Michelle Halder for P8. Jack Young had also passed Files and moved a further place up the order on Lap 6 when he passed Michelle Halder for ninth place.

One lap later, Jelmini passed Filippi for P7 and Butti passed Files for P11, while on Lap 8 Young passed Filippi for P8 before Pepe Oriola and Michelle Halder went straight on at T1, taking to the escape road to navigate their way past the chicane. Files was now twelfth and only too aware that the Drivers’ title was slipping away from him, but just after Young passed Jelmini for P7 in run down to the Parabolica, Jelmini headed for the pits and Filippi pulled up on track, so a relieved Files was back up to ninth and back in the title fight.

A great three-way battle then developed between Felipe Fernández, Michele Imberti and Jack Young, with Fernández passing Imberti for fifth place on Lap 10 and then Young first passing Imberti for sixth and then Fernández for fifth on the race’s penultimate lap before Young then dropped back behind the pair once again. Files’ ninth place was starting to come under attack from Pepe Oriola, but when Paolo Rocca’s Honda Civic hit the wall at the exit to the Ascari chicane and was stranded in the gravel, the race was red-flagged with just over a lap remaining.

Girolami’s winning margin was just over three-tenths from Gavrilov while López was just over three seconds adrift of the pair in third place. Behind the podium finishers, Baldan, Imperti and Felipe Fernández completed the top six while Files retained his ninth place by finishing just under half a second ahead of Oriola.

In the Drivers’ championship standings, the weekend’s results mean Girolami now has one hand on the trophy. He is 89 points ahead of Files with a total of 96 on offer from the final event of the season in Barcelona. Gavrilov’s second place means he has now moved into third place in the standings ahead of Coronel and Callejas, but the title fight is now strictly a two-way affair between Girolami and Files. In the Rookie class, champion-elect Marco Butti once again took maximum points, while Davidovski’s second place in the Diamond Trophy was enough to give him the title with one event still to go.

Race 2 result

1.     Franco Girolami (Comtoyou Racing, Audi RS 3 LMS TCR)  12 laps

2.     Klim Gavrilov (Volcano Motorsport, CUPRA Leon Competición)   +0.326

3.     Sergio López (RC2 Junior Team, CUPRA Leon Competición)   +3.972

4.     Nicola Baldan (Target Competition, Hyundai Elantra N)  +6.124

5.     Michele Imberti (CRM Motorsport, Hyundai i30 N)   +7.468

6.     Felipe Fernández (RC2 Junior Team, Audi RS 3 LMS)   +7.509

Championship points

1.Girolami 354pts; 2. Files 265pts; 3. Gavrilov 249pts; 4. Coronel 234pts; 5. Callejas 223pts.

TCR Europe heads to Spain for its final event of the season at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya over the weekend of October 14^th and 15^th.