This weekend sees the TCR Europe series’ summer break come to an end with the fifth event of the season taking place at the iconic Nürburgring in Germany. Seven weeks after the previous event, the pair of races at the Nürburgring will be the third time this season that TCR Europe will form part of the DTM support race package after the events at Portimão and the Norisring.

The final three events of the season are packed into the same timeframe as that break – seven weeks – with September’s visit to Monza and then Barcelona in October making up the remainder of the seven-event TCR Europe calendar. Both Drivers’ and Teams’ titles are currently still wide open, although the situation may well become slightly clearer after this weekend.

Franco Girolami currently leads the Drivers’ championship, 72 points ahead of 2019 TCR Europe champion Josh Files. Girolami finished second to Mikel Azcona in both races at the Nürburgring last year (pictured), while Jack Young – currently eighth in the standings – finished third in Race 2. There were also top-ten finishes for 2022 contenders Tom Coronel, Klim Gavrilov, Isidro Callejas, Mat’o Homola and Jáchym Galáš, underlining the strength of this year’s field, while Mike and Michelle Halder will again be on home soil and Mike will be looking to add to the victory he scored in Race 1 at the Norisring.

Making the weekend even more difficult to predict, Pepe Oriola will be keen to get a good result in his second event for Aggressive Team Italia, while Josh Files and his teammates Nicola Baldan and Felice Jelmini are hungry to record Target Competition’s first win of the season. John Filippi is still searching for his first podium finish of the year in the Sébastien Loeb Racing – Bardahl Team CUPRA Leon Competición and there are entries for current TCR Germany drivers Patrick Sing and Jonas Karklys to add further spice to proceedings.

In the Teams’ championship battle, race wins for all three of the Comtoyou Racing drivers mean that the Belgian team currently has a 66-point lead over Volcano Motorsport, with Target Competition a further 55 points adrift. In the Diamond Trophy, Viktor Davidovski has a 69-point advantage over Evgenii Leonov with Giacomo Ghermandi in third place, 20 points behind Leonov.

From the eight races held so far this season, Girolami is the only driver to have scored more than one race win and, thanks to those two second-place finishes at the Nürburgring last year, he must surely head to Germany as the pre-event favourite. Those eight races, however, have also delivered wins for Young, Coronel, Davidovski, Callejas, Galáš and Mike Halder and so the Argentinian driver will have a fight on his hands to add to those two victories.

Event timetable

Friday, August 26^th

11.25 – 11.55 Free Practice 1

16.40 – 17.10 Free Practice 2

Saturday, August 27^th

08.45 – 09.20 Qualifying

17.00 Race 1 (16 laps)

Sunday, August 28^th

17.50 Race 2 (16 laps)

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

2022 TCR Europe Series – calendar

30 April/1 May – Autodromo do Algarve, Portugal

21/22 May – Circuit Paul Ricard, France

18/19 June – Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium

02/03 July – Norisring, Germany

27/28 August – Nürburgring, Germany

24/25 September – Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy

15/16 October – Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya, Spain