Citroën’s José María López says that securing his second World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) title in Thailand is “just a dream”, with the Argentine taking the title with three races to spare.
López scored his ninth victory of the season with a lights-to-flag win in race one to seal the title, amassing an unassailable 112 point lead with only two races left to run in Qatar.
Having successfully defended his first title, López admits that he never thought he would be able to achieve such success in his racing career.
“This is just a dream, two world championships,” said López. “It’s something I never expected but somehow life gave this to me so I really thank everything and I look forward to celebrating with my friends. When I say my friends I mean everybody in the WTCC because everybody has been so kind to me.
“I want to congratulate everybody and thank all the people who have been around me in my career for 23 years, starting with my family, my father especially, my brothers who gave up a lot of things to help me race in Europe, my girlfriend Victoire who has stopped me from being very alone in Europe, everybody in Argentina and the team. I wouldn’t be here without them.”
Incredibly, López has failed to win on just five of his 24 weekends racing in the WTCC. Such success means that the 32-year-old is rapidly ascending the all-time WTCC statistics, and he is now joint fourth in terms of all-time victories. Should he take victory in the season finale in Qatar then he would equal his own record of ten wins in a season.
“If you would have said to me nine races I would have signed the contract,” added ‘Pechito’ López. “Sometimes you need to put more pressure on yourself to get a bit more but now I am a little more relaxed and we will do our best.
“I don’t race for the records, I race to enjoy in a fantastic team with fantastic team-mates. It’s a new race for us in the WTCC and it will be very interesting. I have seen the track from the MotoGP races and it looks very nice. Hopefully we’ll have a great weekend again and we hope to have a fantastic fight once again.”
Despite enjoying another successful year in the WTCC, López insists that no deal has yet been done for 2016 to make it three titles in a row.
“We have to talk with the team. Of course the intention is to be together next year but still there are some things to go through and we will see if we can arrive at an agreement because it’s really nice to be in this team.
“I always said last year it would be my dream to win the world title and now I have done it again so I just want to take some time to celebrate and enjoy. It’s been hard work, really tough races this year and now it’s time to relax a bit and then look forward.”