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Nicolas Taylor wins wild second race at Paul Ricard and stretches his lead
07
June
2026

Nicolas Taylor wins wild second race at Paul Ricard and stretches his lead

Nicolas Taylor won an action-packed second race at Circuit Paul Ricard and extended his lead in the drivers’ championship to 20 points over his team-mate Nicola Baldan. Baldan is now Taylor's closest rival, and also spent the last two years fighting the Canadian in TCR Italy before joining him at PMA Motorsport this year in TCR Europe.

Gabriele Covini’s Hyundai started from pole position but was quickly shuffled back, with Taylor taking the lead into Turn 1, while the two CUPRAs of Victor Weyrich and Mikhail Simonov slipped past Covini into second and third place.

A skirmish behind saw yesterday’s race winner, Nicola Baldan, cut Turn 2 and rejoin in fifth place; the Italian was soon marked for investigation for cutting the track.

Baldan then overtook Covini’s Hyundai into Turn 10, while Taylor led the way up front until lap four, when he made a mistake at Turn 11 and ran wide, allowing Weyrich through.

Weyrich was now leading a race for the second time in two days and was pulling away, looking set for a shock victory at his home race, until he stopped with a puncture on lap eight, which handed the lead back to Taylor.

It was then confirmed that Baldan would receive a five-second time penalty for his cut at the beginning of the race, meaning he would need to pull out a gap on the chasing Solite Indigo Racing Hyundai of Junui Park behind.

Taylor came under attack from Simonov, who launched a charge on the final lap and nearly got the nose of his CUPRA ahead, but Taylor held on to cross the line first and claim his second win of the year, following his first career victory at the season opener at Mugello three months ago.

Simonov finished second, while drama befell Baldan on the final lap when he slowed with a puncture. This allowed Park’s Hyundai to take his place on the podium, as Baldan fell to fourth.

Another last-lap drama affected Mike Halder, whose Honda dropped to 13th with a late puncture and was then collected by Santiago Concepción’s Audi at the finish line, with the latter sustaining significant front-end damage.

Taylor’s win sees him extend his points lead to 20 points over his team-mate Baldan, while Halder falls to third, 32 points behind.

The next round of the championship takes place at the Hungaroring on 3–5 July.


TCR Euro Series
NEXTGEN ENERGY SL
Edificio Leiro
Ctra. C-17 km 27 Despacho 14
08480 L´atmella del Valles
Barcelona
NIF- B42812503

CONTACTS:
TCR Euro Series: info@tcr-europe.com
Press Officer: neil@tcr-europe.com

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