RODRIGUES HOLDS OFF KISS FOR SECOND TITAN VICTORY
A brilliant race from the reverse grid front row has secured José Eduardo Rodrigues his second Titan victory.
The brief rain shower that caused Race 2 to start under a wet race procedure did nothing to deter from the action-packed spectacle. The track conditions improved as the race went on, gifting a tightly contested victory right until the chequered flag.
Rodrigues made quick work of pole-sitting Clemens Hecker, knowing that the other Titan competitors would soon be on his tail. He wanted to build a lead to give him as much of a chance of holding onto the win.
It wasn’t long before Norbert Kiss was climbing up the order, back into podium contention. There was a tight moment between Jochen Hahn and him, fighting for on track position in drying conditions, that saw Kiss off track. Kiss made up the position by the end of the second lap, but the incident did go under investigation by the race stewards. At the time of publishing, the results of that investigation are not known.
It looked like a big task: catching the ten second lead Rodrigues had built in six laps. But this is Norbert Kiss. It felt inevitable as in just three laps the Hungarian was right on the leader’s bumper, looking for the best moment to make the overtake, aided slightly by Rodrigues making a mistake and going off track briefly.
However, there was another twist in the tale. Kiss made a rare mistake, losing time to Rodrigues and falling under pressure from Hahn in third behind with one lap to go. The gap was too big, and the reigning champ had no choice but to concede defeat and settle for second, Rodrigues taking his second win of 2025 by half a second.
“This was a very difficult race with the wet conditions then dry,” Rodrigues explained. “I tried to gain some space to the other drivers when I got into the lead and made a mistake in one lap, going off, but it all worked out in the end. I tried to find my place in the first race, so this victory was possible in the second. This big result, the victory, is the most important.”
Sascha Lenz and Steffi Halm had a close battle for P4, and it was Lenz who came out on top having started reverse grid P6. Antonio Albacete found moving up the grid difficult in Race 2, only getting to P6 from his P8 start. This came slightly as a gift of René Reinert who had a tough race, going off multiple times. At one stage, he looked like he would finish the race outside of the point scoring positions, but he managed to recovered in the final few laps to get back to seventh.
A brilliant day all round for John Newell, who took victory in Chrome and P8 overall to take points in the overall championship standings too. His P3 and victory today see him gain a great deal of points on the Chrome championship leaders. Starting the weekend 19 points behind leader Bradley Smith, he has outscored him by 14 points today. The results see him jump Mark Taylor for second in the Chrome standings, now behind Smith by just eight points.
It was an all-British Chrome podium as Luke Garrett got his second silverware of the year with P2, Smith rounding off the top three. Luis Recuenco and Clemens Hecker were fourth and fifth in class, but this is all pending Steward’s investigations. Newell is under investigation for contact with Recuenco, and Recuenco is under investigation for contact with Hecker. At the time of publishing, the investigations are still pending.
Martin Macík and Christian Ruppert had relatively quiet races compared to their rivals, rounding off the classified drivers.
Steffen Faas did start the race from the pit lane after missing the pit open window, but pulled up after four laps of racing with another truck failure.
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