Leopard Racing’s Stefano Comini was left disappointed after qualifying for the TCR International Series at Spa-Francorchamps, with the defending champion putting his Volkswagen in eighth for the first race.
Comini claimed that Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Sergey Afanasyev, who was working with his team-mates to slipstream in qualifying, got in the way of his Volkswagen Golf GTi heading through the high-speed Eau Rouge corner on his final flying lap.
Although Comini will start from third in the reverse-grid second race, the Swiss did not hide his disappointment after the session.
“The result is bad for me, it’s bad for us as a team,” said Comini to TouringCars.Net. “We are here at the home race for the team and I wanted to be closer to the front in P3 or P4, but it’s difficult with 20 kg more. We have some issues with speed.
“The car is challenging a lot. [The ballast] is not 50 kg, which would be shit, but 20 kg is worth three tenths. With the set-up we are credible, we have found a good setup, but we had some problems with the guys in front and traffic, which is really shit.
“I like to win from the front and to battle with the front guys. It’s difficult because of the slipstream, we don’t have the speed to overtake at Spa. We need to work on the aerodynamics, but for this Volkswagen need to work a lot on the aerodynamics. They are helping us a lot and they want to be faster and faster, but now the SEAT is a really good car because they did a lot of work on the aerodynamics over the winter.”
Comini added that he has found extra confidence in his car and hopes to kick start his title defence, despite it still being relatively early days for the Golf TCR car.
“Now we are quite on the limit of the car with the setup. We were working very fast every time from Bahrain to today we improved it a lot. The team found a lot of speed with changes on the setup and we are working a lot with the guys on the damper system, which is good. We need only to get to the front.
“I am happy with the improvement of the car. Every time with the team it is getting better – it is the best team in TCR and they want to win the title this year. It’s very difficult but I am here to win the title.”
Comini also quipped that he was concerned about his starting position and being in the middle of the pack heading into the challenging first few corners on the opening lap of the race.
“Some guys here are a little bit hot – I am one of those! It’s tricky to start P8 because the guys there are a little bit crazy!”