TCR World and life

16 EUROPE Volcano Motorsport’s Mikel Azcona was a man on a mission when TCR Europe went to Barcelona for the final event of the season. The Spaniard wanted to secure the title in Saturday’s race so that he could fly back to the Czech Republic to race in the WTCR at Most and left nothing to chance. After spending the Friday in Most, where he qualified on pole position for Sunday’s WTCR Race 2, he encored that performance on Saturday morning at the Catalunya circuit. Azcona then made good use of his first position on the grid and led the field on his way to take a lights-to-flag win, the sixth for him during the season, ahead of Teddy Clairet and Sami Taoufik (right). A victory that crowned him as the TCR Europe champion for the second time in four years. The hopes of Franco Girolami, the only driver who could spoil the Spaniard’s party, were virtually washed away by a fuel pump issue in Qualifying, that relegated the Argentine to start both races from the back of the grid. But Girolami’s odds had already shrunk in the previous event at Monza. On the Italian circuit (bottom right), the PSS Racing Team’s driver had finished first in both races, not refraining from resorting to controversial manoeuvres to beat Azcona twice. One of those moves, overtaking in a yellow flag zone during the second race, was sanctioned with a 30-second penalty that stripped him of 40 precious points. THEVOLCANOMOTORSPORT DRIVERWAS CROWNED EUROPEAN CHAMPION IN BARCELONA AFTER SATURDAY’S RACE Onerace isenough forMikelAzcona