Russian World Touring Car Championship driver Mikhail Kozlovskiy admits that the manufacturer’s relative lack of pre-season testing means that it will be tough to compete in the season-opening round in Morocco.
Although LADA recently revealed their new TC1 Granta at Magny-Cours, the Russian manufacturer opted to miss last week’s test session in Valencia to allow them to make further changes to their new-for-2014 car.
The team’s 24-year-old Russian driver Kozlovskiy, who will compete alongside Brits James Thompson and Rob Huff in the team in 2014, admits that missing the test leaves more uncertainties for the team ahead of the first meeting than their rivals.
“It’s a pity that we missed the Valencia test this year because it’s a good reference for where we are with the pace,” said Kozlovskiy to TouringCars.Net. “Of course it’s easier to compare and to predict because when we come to Morocco we have no idea what the pace [of the car] will be like.”
Kozlovskiy explains that the decision was made to miss the general test session to allow the team to make further adjustments to the car after a recent FIA inspection.
“We decided to concentrate the focus on preparing the cars,” explained Kozlovskiy. “After the FIA inspection we needed to fix something – it’s not a major problem but there are quite a few things we need to fix. Due to logistics and all the issues we decided to focus on finishing the cars and to be 100% ready for Morocco.”
Kozlovskiy heads into his second full season in the WTCC, having been called up to race for the marque after previous Russian driver Alexsei Dudukalo controversially crashed into team-mate Thompson at Monza in 2013.
“For me it will be the same as last year, because I joined the championship at the second round in Morocco with a new car and no testing,” added Kozlovskiy. “It will not be harder this year than last time.”
Reflecting on his maiden season in the WTCC, in which the Russian took a best finish of 13th in Marrakech, Kozlovskiy admits he is pleased with his performance but seeks to get closer to his team-mates in 2014.
“The main target was to learn the tracks and to understand the championship a little bit more than I did from the outside,” admitted Kozlovskiy. “Overall I think I finished a lot of races so I would say I gained a lot more experience than I thought I would.
“The consistency was good but I was targeting to be a little higher on the grid, but due to different issues – technical as well as mine – it was not always possible.
“I had a good reference with James and on some tracks I was even faster like in Argentina, where I did a good lap time in the warm-up and was faster than him. The speed is not that bad – you just need to go to the same circuit not for the first time and the second time will be much easier.”