TCR World and life

5 No fewer than forty-five weeks had passed between Josh Files securing the 2019 TCR Europe title in Monza and the 2020 season finally getting underway at the Circuit Paul Ricard at Le Castellet in the south of France. Twenty-four cars took to the iconic track to begin a six-event series that will visit Zolder, Monza, Barcelona, Spa-Francorchamps and finally Jarama before the championship concludes in early November. Despite the delayed start, this year already looks like being a classic, with so many drivers and teams having the potential to win races and build a healthy points total. A COMPETITIVE FIELD MAKES THE BATTLE UMPREDICTABLE The different sessions at Le Castellet certainly underlined that unpredictability. Fastest in Free Practice 1 on Friday was Dániel Nagy who made the switch to the BRC Racing Team alongside Mat’o Homola for 2020. Nagy’s Hyundai i30 N was just 31 thousandths of a second quicker than Target Competition’s Andreas Bäckman in another Hyundai, with the third fastest time being set by the Honda Civic Type-R of WTCR guest star Néstor Girolami, who’d been called up to deputise for PSS Racing’s Viktor Davidovski when Covid-19 restrictions meant the Macedonian driver was unable to travel to France. FP2 then saw Girolami set the quickest time, with the Peugeot 308 of Teddy Clairet just under four-tenths of a second slower and the Honda of Mike Halder six-thousandths behind Clairet. Qualifying on Saturday morning then further confirmed the strength of the field. Q1 saw the Bäckman siblings Jessica and Andreas set the two fastest times, but it was their new teammate John Filippi who went quickest in Q2 to take pole position for Race 1. Morocco’s Mehdi Bennani, who has joined Comtoyou Racing, was second quickest in an Audi RS 3 LMS and Daniel Lloyd was third in a Brutal Fish Racing Team Honda Civic. The big names who failed to go through to Q2 included Nagy, Pepe Oriola and Tom Coronel, who were 13th, 14th and 15th respectively.