Record times in the NASCAR Euro Series continued to tumble! There might have been a long gap from the previous round in the UK, but the NASCAR GP Czech Republic continued the trend that was set at Brands Hatch with another record breaking performance with the new Hoosier Tire spec in practice. With an amazing drive in the final session, Thomas Toffel and Raphael Lessard shattered the existing records that V8GP and OPEN had at Autodrom Most. With a respective final combined time of 1:39.473 and 1:40.047, both the Swiss and the Canadian driver will have the perfect momentum for the upcoming qualifying and races that will determine their classification at the end of the 2026 regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
NASCAR GP CZECH REPUBLIC LINKS: INFO & TICKETS<\/a> | SCHEDULE<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0ENTRY LIST<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0LIVE TIMING<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0WATCH LIVE<\/a><\/p>\n V8GP: Record Breaker Thomas Toffel on the Rise<\/p>\n Thomas Toffel has steadily risen up the NASCAR Euro Series ladder ever since his debut in 2023. The Swiss already established himself as a bonafide OPEN title challenger and is hungry for success in the V8GP division. Therefore, the record times that Toffel had in practice served as the ultimate validation for his speed behind the wheel of a pure racing machine. With a lead of 0.218 seconds to runner-up Thomas Krasonis, the THT by Race Art Technology driver is on course for a potential breakthrough weekend at Autodrom Most.<\/p>\n Toffel and Krasonis\u2019 performance also gave them the top times in the Challenger and Junior Trophy respectively. Vittorio Ghirelli steadily but surely followed in third. The reigning two-time V8GP champion kept his trademark consistency, a vital asset for any elite driver in this demanding championship. Nelson Piquet Jr. and Paul Jouffreau completed the top-5 with less than a half a second separating them to the combined leader Toffel. Jouffreau was second in the Junior Trophy, beating Vinnie Meskelis who finished his day in seventh.<\/p>\n Sitting in between Jouffreau and Meskelis is the ever impressive Jordan O\u2019Brien, who returned to the site of his breakthrough weekend from 2025. Fabrizio Armetta, Gianmarco Ercoli and Logan Bearden rounded out the top-10 positions. Bearden continued his rapid adaptation to the European circuits with a second place result in the Challenger Trophy. Davit Kajaia completed the top-3 times for the special classification in 15th place.<\/p>\n OPEN: Raphael Lessard with Another Unofficial Track Record<\/p>\n Raphael Lessard was the driver who cracked the unofficial lap record at the NASCAR GP UK back in June. Fast forward two months later, and Lessard continued to be OPEN\u2019s trend setter with another unofficial lap record in the Czech Republic. A lack of experience at Autodrom Most was not a problem for the 25-year old driver from Quebec, who secured the top spot by 0.114 seconds from Legend Trophy leader Claudio Cappelli. Lessard\u2019s title rival Toffel was not far off the Alumitec Racing driver in third, setting the stage for a continuation of their thrilling on-track duels.<\/p>\n Home crowd favorite Martin Doubek was fourth and showed his potential by leading the field in the first practice session. Thomas Dombrowski completed the top-5 ahead of the young Belgian sensation Jens Beeusaert. Beeusaert led the Master Trophy in sixth and beat OPEN veterans Gil Linster and Vladimiros Tziortzis.<\/p>\n Sandro Tavartkiladze was hit by early mechanical problems, but bounced back to finish ninth ahead of his Team Bleekemolen teammate Melvin de Groot. Both Tavartkiladze and de Groot were also runner-ups in the Master and Legend Trophy. Ossi Pohjanharju just missed out on an overall top-10 finish, but the Finnish rookie was third in the Master Trophy. The top-3 in the Legend Trophy was completed by Giovanni Faraonio in 16th.<\/p>\n Surrounding Faraonio is a sensational battle for the top spot in the Lady Trophy. Robin Bleekemolen maintained her momentum from the UK with another fastest time in the special classification. The third generation Bleekemolen driver finished 13th, just ahead of steady learner Mariam Davitidze. Trophy leader Beitske Visser followed the Dutch and Georgian racer in 17th position.<\/p>\n The fast times from the opening day have significantly increased the stakes for the NASCAR GP Czech Republic. With dropped points in the horizons and tens of thousands of fans waiting to watch the spectacle of American racing at Autodrom Most, the 2026 edition promises to bring all of the emotions. Broadcast from qualifying will be started at 09:45 CEST, followed by the V8GP and OPEN races at 14:15 and 17:00 CEST, live from DAZN, YouTube and TV partners all around the world. For more details of your local providers, you can find the information from our trusty guide at https:\/\/www.nascar.eu\/watch\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n NASCAR Euro Series PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Record times in the NASCAR Euro Series continued to tumble! There might have been a long gap from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-875015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}