In the morning’s qualifying session, Butti's MM Motorsport team worked frantically on his car as technical issues plagued the championship leader as they had been throughout practice yesterday. The Italian ventured back onto the track with just over five minutes remaining, setting a benchmark time that left him a lowly 16th on the grid for both of the weekend's races.

His main title rival, Eric Gené, fared little better initially. Gené's first three lap times were deleted, and a final attempt on worn tyres was only enough for 13th, seemingly knocking him out of the session. However, a review of his third flying lap confirmed it was within the track limits and the time was reinstated. This allowed Gené to progress to Q2, but again the Spanish driver’s first two laps were deleted, and a safe lap set right at the end of the session saw him placed fifth on the grid. With it, he scored two points, and moved into a two-point lead ahead of Butti.

ALM Motorsport’s Ruben Volt led the way throughout both parts of qualifying, and the Estonian stormed to pole with a commanding lap of 1:49.345. The rival Hondas of Felipe Fernández and Jacopo Cimenes completed an all-Honda top three, with Brickley securing the fourth-best time as the quickest of the CUPRAs. G

The best-placed Audi was that of title contender Jimmy Clairet, who qualified just behind Gené in sixth, while Teddy Clairet qualified in ninth place.

Volt controls the race, while crashes and contact create the show

In the afternoon’s race, Volt got a good start from pole position, while the rival Honda of Felipe Fernández alongside him was immediately passed by the fast-starting Eric Gené into Turn 1.

The race was quickly interrupted after Jacopo Cimenes stalled his MM Motorsport Honda from third on the grid. The luckless Italian suffered his second massive rear-end shunt in as many races when he was collected, unsighted, by Victor Fernández's Honda. Sam Laidlaw's CUPRA clipped his team-mate and father, Steve, while taking evasive action, putting both cars out with damage. The Hyundai of Raphael Fournier also ran into the rear of Fernandez’s Honda and was out on the spot. 

The race was initially placed behind the safety car before being red-flagged for the recovery of the five stranded cars on the start-finish straight.

At the restart, Volt controlled the pace from the lead, but Gené was struggling behind and found himself under pressure from Felipe Fernández’s Honda.

The action intensified on lap six when Fernández clipped Gené into a slide at Turn 12. This incident allowed Brickley, as well as both of the Clairet brothers' Audis, to sweep past Fernández, while Gené fell outside the top ten, and was soon in a scrap with title rival Marco Butti, who was trying to recover ground after the morning’s qualifying disaster.

The safety car was called out once more with two laps remaining when Filippo Barberi's Audi stopped in the gravel trap. Volt crossed the line victorious. Brickley's second-place finish elevated him into the championship lead, a five-point advantage over Teddy Clairet, who finished fourth behind his brother Jimmy (third).

Penalties and championship implications

A raft of post-race penalties further scrambled the results. Felipe Fernández received a ten-second penalty for his incident with Gené, dropping him out of the points. Butti was one of five drivers to pick up a five-second penalty for track limits violations, with Butti's penalty also depriving him of a points finish. After the race Nicola Baldan, who had finished sixth, also received a ten-second penalty for passing behind the safety car, dropping him from sixth and out of the points.

Gené eventually recovered to be classified in ninth. As a result, five drivers enter tomorrow's title decider separated by just 18 points: Brickley leads Teddy Clairet (+5), Gené (+6), Jimmy Clairet (+15), and Butti (+18) in the battle for the 2025 TCR Europe series drivers’ title.

With the reversed top ten grid, points leader Brickley will be aiming to push forward from seventh on the grid, while Teddy Clairet, who is just five points away from the lead of the standings, is well-positioned on the grid, starting from second. Eric Gené is set to start from sixth, with Jimmy Clairet one place ahead of him in fifth, while Butti will again have his work cut out for him, starting again from 16th.

Ruben Volt, ALM Motorsport, race winner, said:

“It was quite boring out there, after lap two I was just trying to bring the car home in one piece and not take any risks, and focus on tomorrow. I knew I had the pace, I just needed to get some clean restarts. With Gené behind me I thought he probably wasn’t going to attack me into Turn 1 so I just played it safe. From P10 tomorrow, hopefully it’ll go better than it did at Misano."

Jenson Brickley, Monlau Motorsport, P2, championship leader, said:

“We had a bit of a poor start and I lost one position but gained another. Then with the fight in front, I just sat back and watched and waited for it all to unfold in front of me, and from there it was about managing and trying to keep Jimmy behind. Obviously we’re starting a bit further back tomorrow, and Ruben’s very fast, so it’s about trying to keep the ones behind, behind, and also think about moving forward. Teddy’s starting up front so it’s going to be hard, so we’ll see what happens, it’s another race. We saw what happened at the start today, so anything can happen."

Jimmy Clairet, Team Clairet Sport, third place, said:

"I’m pleased to finish third today, as I really didn’t have the pace to follow the leaders. I’m happy I could follow Brickley in the race as I could see there was a problem with the rear of his car in the long corners, so I could follow him in these kind of corners, but in the last two corners he was too fast and I couldn’t pass him in this race. The championship is now completely open, and we have a good chance for Teddy or me to fight for the title. We have no plan, as you can do all the plans you want, but anything can happen, we just have to race  see what happens tomorrow."

Giacomo Ghermandi, MM Motorsport, Diamond Best Trophy winner, said:

"We were very unlucky this morning in quali, as we had the pace to go through to Q2, but we had a track limits on my good lap. I had a strong start in the race, I was a bit lucky to not be in the crash on the first lap. After the restart I made a race with by pace, I was behind (René) Kircher for much of the race, and then the last five laps were very busy as Gené made a mistake in front of me. I defended from Gené and then let my team-mate past to fight for the championship."

Race 1 result
1    Ruben Volt    ALM Motorsport    Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR    13 laps
2    Jenson Brickley    Monlau Motorsport    CUPRA Leon VZ TCR    0.767
3    Jimmy Clairet    Team Clairet Sport    Audi RS 3 LMS    1.409
4    Teddy Clairet    Team Clairet Sport    Audi RS 3 LMS    1.654
5    Viktor Andersson    MA:GP    Lynk & Co 03 TCR    2.848
6    Junesung Park    Solite Indigo Racing    Hyundai Elantra N TCR    4.636
7    Gabriele Covini    BRC Racing Team    Hyundai Elantra N TCR    4.994
8    René Kircher    ALM Motorsport    Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCR    5.898
9    Eric Gené    Monlau Motorsport    CUPRA Leon VZ TCR    6.15
10    Junui Park    Solite Indigo Racing    Hyundai Elantra N TCR    7.568 ...