Eric Gené and Jenson Brickley will compete for reigning champions Monlau Motorsport in this year’s TCR Europe series, racing a pair of CUPRA Leon VZ TCR cars.
The Spanish team secured the drivers’ title last year with Franco Girolami, and will return to the series in 2025 with the Spanish and British drivers.
Gené, 18, is the son of experienced touring car racer Jordi Gené. The Spaniard made his début in the series at Spa-Francorchamps in 2024. He competed full-time in last year’s TCR Spain series, finishing fourth overall, and returned to the series for the season-opener of the 2025 season earlier this month, picking up a win in race two.
“It’s the best package that I can have,” said Gené. “Monlau and CUPRA did an incredible job last year with Franco Girolami, and this year in TCR Spain we’ve also started in a very good way and I think we can have the same progress in TCR Europe.
“It’ll also be great working with Jenson this year, he’s an incredible driver, and he’s the team-mate I’ve been looking for. It’s great to have a driver like Jenson as my team-mate as in wet and dry he’s very fast, and I’m glad he’s on my side of the box.
“Most of the circuits will be new for me, as I’ve mainly raced in Spain – so I’ll be leaving Spain to race at some large circuits for the first time.
“It will be my first time in Germany, Italy, Austria – so I’m really looking forward to this; it’ll be an enormous challenge, but I’ll be working hard to make sure we have good results.”
Like Gené, Brickley has also been competing in TCR Spain since the start of 2024. The 20-year-old was runner-up in 2024, having claimed one win in his family team. He made his TCR Europe début at the season finale in Valencia last year, finishing tenth in the opening race.
Brickley was also a race winner in his début year of TCR competition in 2023, winning in TCR UK at Croft.
“It’s a big change for me, as last year I was racing by myself,” said Brickley. “It’s really strange, as it’s like taking a step back and focussing on just the racing.
“In between rounds I can do other things like more work on the simulator. From what we’ve already seen, we’ve got really good pace, the team is really strong, so it should be a great year.
“Eric and I are very close in pace. We’ve been working well together looking and learning from the data, which we’ve already been seeing the benefits from like we saw in Barcelona two weeks’ ago.
“The goal is the overall title. I think given what we did last year in TCR Spain with our own team, and also looking at the pace we had at my TCR Europe debut in Valencia, I can’t see why we can’t be at least the top three in the championship, and if you’re up there, you’ve got to go for the top prize.”