Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Grégoire Demoustier is lamenting his ten-place grid penalty for the first of this weekend’s World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) races in Marrakech, incurred as a result of an engine change last time out in Argentina.
Despite claiming his first-ever points finish in South America with a tenth-place finish in race two, young Frenchman Demoustier also incurred his first grid penalty in the WTCC. Over-revving his engine whilst downshifting, Craft-Bamboo Racing were forced to change the engine on his Chevrolet Cruze prior to the second round of the season.
Following on from his first meeting in the series, the British team then air-freighted the new Cruze TC1 to Portugal, where Demoustier enjoyed a further four days of testing in order to gain valuable experience for the touring car newcomer.
“It is a real shame about my ten place grid penalty after the start we had in Argentina,” lamented the 24-year-old. “We completed four days of successful testing in Portimão, where I gained lots of experience in the car and consistently improved my lap times.
“The engineers did a great job of extracting more performance from the car and it is unfortunate that I won’t be able to showcase this in Morocco but I will be doing my absolute best to challenge the rest of the field.”
Despite the setback, Craft-Bamboo Racing CEO Richard Coleman is impressed with the way in which Demoustier has established himself at the start of his touring car career.
“The entire team was really impressed with Gregoire’s pace and performance during the extensive Portimão test period and we have made a huge amount of progress with the car since the first race.
“We will be looking at a safe approach with the tyres this weekend which will hopefully benefit us in later races, but it is important that we wait until Budapest to see where the improvements made in testing have got us.”