LADA’s James Thompson says that he is “delighted” to have put the brand new Vesta on pole position for its World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) début, after securing the top spot for the reverse-grid second race on Sunday.
Thompson qualified his car in tenth position, with team-mate Rob Huff just one place behind in 11th. It means that the Englishman will start race two on Sunday from first on the grid, whilst Huff will be forced to start both races from 11th having just missed out on the pole himself by four tenths of a second.
The result will mark the first time since the Macau season finale in 2003 that Thompson will start from the front row in a WTCC race, and it will also be his first pole of any type since the season finale in 2008.
“I am delighted to put the LADA SPORT ROSNEFT Vesta on the pole position on its debut, it will be a proud moment when we line up for the start in front of the world’s eyes” said Thompson. “I lacked the outright pace in my car that was displayed in Huffy’s as we are still working on a variety of teething problems to be expected with a brand new racing car but I am full of optimism for the races and season ahead based on what we have seen so far”.
Both brand new Vesta WTCC cars showed promising performance on their début in Argentina, with former champion Huff going fastest of all in Q1. However a technical problem in Q2 meant that the Brit was unable to capitalise on the car’s performance.
“I haven’t felt this good about a race car I’ve driven since I won the WTCC World Championship [in 2012],” enthused Huff. “We clearly had the pace and the LADA SPORT ROSNEFT team have done a truly excellent job to design build and deliver this machine for me to drive.
“We could have been at the very front for race one if luck had stayed with us but I know what we have for the future is a tremendous prospect and I will start to deliver on this promise in the races tomorrow”.
The LADA team are running only two cars for their experienced Brits this weekend, with regular driver Mikhail Kozlovskiy watching from the sidelines whilst his car is completed in time for the second round of the season.