The legendary Spa-Francorchamps will host the TCR Europe Touring Car Series for the eighth consecutive time this weekend, with French driver Jimmy Clairet coming in as the championship leader after a successful first round of the season three weeks ago in Portugal.

The Belgian circuit is both a motorsport fan and driver favourite, with the highspeed track and its magnificent swoop down through Eau Rouge and up through Raidillion presenting a challenge to every touring car driver, and often provides great racing along with unpredictable weather conditions.

Over the years race victories have gone to five different brands, with drivers equipped cars from CUPRA having won the most times at the seven kilometre circuit, despite the fact it’s generally considered that three-box shaped cars have the aerodynamic edge, with Audi, Honda, and Hyundai all possible beneficieries.

Clairet leads the way ahead of his 'home' race

34-year-old Jimmy Clairet took pole and victory in Race 1 at the season opener of the relaunched TCR Europe series last month at Portimão, and the Paris-based driver will be looking to defend his championship lead in his Team Clairet Sport Audi RS 3 LMS at Spa, the closest race to his home and a circuit where he has a great deal of experience – with his closest title challenge at the moment coming from the UK’s Jenson Brickley, who won Race 2 in his Monlau Motorsport CUPRA Leon VZ TCR.

Newcomers to the grid at the star Estonian team

22 cars will form the grid again, with reigning teams’ champions ALM Motorsport expanding to a three-car operation this weekend, with an all-Estonian line-up, adding Sven Karuse, an experienced competitor in the Baltic series, and recent TCR Spain race winner Sten Dorian Piirimägi is also set to make his TCR Europe series debut in a third Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR for the team.

ALM had a great weekend at the circuit last year, winning both races, but it was RC2 Racing Team’s Felipe Fernández who had claimed his first career pole in tricky conditions as the rain arrived just in time for the second part of qualifying. The Barcelona racer went on to set the all-time race lap record in the race despite dropping to third, but now heads to Spa coming off his best result in the series to-date after finishing second in Race 2 at Portimão.

CUPRAs looking to fight back, as weight kicks in for the second event

Brickley comes in as teams’ champions Monlau Motorsport’s best-placed driver in the standings, and also the leader of the competitive young drivers’ title this year, but Eric Gené will be looking to build on the pace he showed in Portugal, with Spa also the circuit where he made his debut last year. The Spanish racer will be handicapped in qualifying as he carries a five-place grid penalty into Race 1 after he was involved in some feisty action last time out.

The series compensation weight also comes into force this weekend, meaning points leader Jimmy Clairet will carry 40kg of ballast as a reward for his high scoring in Portugal, while his team-mate and brother Teddy Clairet, as well as Brickley will both carry 30kg. Fernández will run with 20kg of ballast in his Honda, while MA:GP’s Viktor Andersson will carry an additional 10kg in his Lynk & Co, with the rest of the field ballast-free.

The slightly unusual schedule this weekend sees qualifying take place at 12:55 CEST on Friday, with both races on Saturday. Race 1 of 25 minutes + 1 lap starts at 12:25 CEST in the afternoon, and the final race at 17:15 the same evening.

Both races will be live streamed on the TCR TV YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@TCRTV.

You can also watch the new-for-2025 race highlights and features programme UNBOXED, right now, summarising the Portugal season opener on TCR TV.

Live streams

Race 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwRGkLzA4SU
Race 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E7ZzCfjbUY

Timetable

Thursday 15th May

15:25 - Free Practice 1
17:20 - Free Practice 2

Friday 16th May

12:55 - Qualifying

Saturday 17th May

12:25 - Race 1
17:15 - Race 2

All times local time (CEST)