LADA’s Mikhail Kozlovskiy says he is ”optimistic” ahead of the start of his World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) season in Morocco next weekend, with the Russian having completed four days of testing in Portimão last week along with team-mates Rob Huff and James Thompson.
Kozlovskiy was forced to miss the season opener in Argentina as his brnad new LADA Vesta was not able to be completed in time. Forced to watch from the sidelines, Kozlovskiy saw both team-mates Huff and Thompson endure a difficulty start to the season, with both drivers retiring from both races due to suspension damage.
For Kozlovskiy, however, starting the season in Marrakech is nothing new. The Russian was brought in as a late replacement for Aleksei Dudukalo in 2013, after he speared into team-mate Thompson during qualifying at the season opener in Monza. In 2014 the Marrakech round of the championship was the season opener, with LADA campaigning the newly built Granta TC1 at the time.
“It’s been like this for all three years, starting in Morocco,” explained Kozlovskiy to TouringCars.Net. “It won’t be more difficult than the first year, for sure. Missing Argentina was not nice but there’s nothing that you can do about it. That’s why I think testing here [in Portimão] is quite important to get used to this car, because street circuits are not the best place to try to learn the car.”
During last week’s test in Portimão Kozlovskiy had to endure minor niggles, with some engine issues affecting his running. However he is confident that the Vesta represents a significant step forwards from the Granta, after limited running in Magny-Cours in February and last week’s Portugal test.
“You don’t have to be an experienced driver to see that even from the outside the car is a completely new story. Concerning every part of it it’s modified and different, so I’m optimistic. I didn’t have a chance to drive a lot, but so far I find the car much more comfortable and it behaves completely different to the Granta.
Kozlovskiy’s car was only finished in the final week of March, with delays from suppliers being the main setback.
“It was in the end of the second pre-season testing in Magny-Cours and it was then that we were not able to build the car because we were needing some spare parts and we couldn’t get them from the suppliers in time. Although we were very short of time for just assembling the car, it was more that we just didn’t have the parts. It was not only a question of time.”
Entering his third season in the WTCC, Kozlovskiy is keeping his goals realistic for the coming year, withy battling amongst the Hondas and Chevrolets being his main objective.
“The goals are as high as the car allows you to go. Last season, the end of the year was really unlucky for me because in the middle, in Summer, it was really nice and I felt really strong. We had some bad luck in the beginning as well, when I retired from three races in a row due to engine failures and even then I didn’t really have much luck. Let’s forget about the old car and hopefully this year will bring some more luck and better results – I’m targeting for higher positions.
“With Citroën it’s not easy for sure but I think we’re able to fight with Honda and Chevrolet. As we saw in Argentina the pace was quite similar with them [Citroën] – they’re still a bit ahead but it’s difficult to compare how much development they’ve done at the moment.”
With both of the team’s cars being damaged on the suspension in Argentina, Kozlovskiy admitted that testing the strength of components on the car would be carried out only after the pace of the car had been proven.
“We are concentrating on this issue during the testing, so we are analysing the strength of the rear [suspension] especially. You know, Morocco is quite aggressive with the kerbs and you attack them quite hard, so we want to be sure that it’s strong enough to take them.
“You start to do it [damage testing] when you’ve done all the rest – all the setup, all the development and now you just think ‘OK what should we do now’”.
“We are building the test car, the fourth car, which can be used for testing, but I don’t think that we are really looking forward to crashing it!”