TCR / 04 August 2025

Pole and podiums for JAS Motorsport customer teams

A pole position and several podium finishes were scored by JAS Motorsport customer teams last weekend as the battle for a high-profile North American title gathered serious momentum.

 

IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge

Montreal Motorsport Group's Louis Philippe Montour and Karl Wittmer topped qualifying and added a podium finish in their Honda Civic Type R TCR at Road America to close significantly on the TCR series lead.

Having taken the team's third pole position in four races, Montour led the first 65 minutes, but his team-mate Wittmer could only rejoin the track in sixth spot with 55 minutes to go.

This is because the #93 Civic had to take on a full fuel load and swap drivers while many other cars had gone through this process during a Full-Course Yellow period 20 minutes earlier and therefore required a smaller amount of fuel and spent less time stationary.

Among those cars was HART's Civic, which was started by Tyler Chambers, but was promoted to second place in Chad Gilsinger's hands.

Sadly he was involved in a collision while fighting for the lead just moments after racing resumed that eliminated him. That moved Wittmer up to fourth and he later seized third at Turn 1 with just 10 minutes left. He fell just 0.2s short of taking second place.

While he and Montour cut the gap at the top of the championship to a slim 90 points, William Tally and Tim Lewis Jr recovered from an early drive-through penalty for a pitstop infringement to finish ninth for KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering.

 

TCR Italy

Michal Bartoszuk scored his second Rookie class win of the year at Imola; the MM Motorsport driver gaining four places during the final 10 minutes of Saturday’s opening race in his Honda Civic Type R TCR to secure the victory.

He was denied a double in Race Two when a rival car pushed him off the track early on and eliminated him. He is second in the standings.

His team-mate Marco Pellegrini twice finished second in the Master class. Jacopo Cimenes was spun by another car on the opening lap of Race Two but recovered to fourth in the Under-25s category. He was also fourth in Race One.

 

Italian GT Championship

Nova Race scored another class podium as the Endurance Championship reached Imola as Luca Magnoni and Paolo Rocca finished third in Am in the three-hour race.

The #77 NSX GT3 Evo 25 raced in and around the overall top 10 for much of the race with Rocca, in particular, showing strong speed. A consistent run brought a rostrum result.

Felice Jelmini, Rodolfo Massaro and Francesco de Luca recovered from an early drive-through for a false start to challenge for the lead in Pro-Am, but two further penalties pushed them back to sixth in class by the finish.