Julien Briché handed penalty; Andreas Bäckman claims his first win

Julien Briché has been stripped of victory from the opening TCR Europe series race of the weekend at Barcelona after receiving a five-second penalty, gifting Andreas Bäckman the win.

Briché was found to have breached Article 38 and 137 of the sporting regulations for being outside of his grid box at the start of the race, and was subsequently penalised.

The penalty drops the Frenchman to second in the results, meaning he now lies 54 points adrift of championship leader Josh Files heading into tomorrow’s second race.

Files himself received a penalty for being fully outside his grid hatching and received a 30-second penalty.

Earlier, Briché believed that “everything was in order” regarding his start, but upon inspection, the stewards issued the penalty, which hands Bäckman his maiden TCR Europe series victory two races after the Swede was himself stripped of a win at Oschersleben.