Jean-Karl Vernay was left feeling frustrated after a ‘difficult qualifying’ session in the TCR International Series at Oschersleben left him in ninth and trailing his two Leopard Racing team-mates.
Vernay, who is seeking to close the 13-point deficit in the championship to Attila Tassi, was beaten by both of his team-mates Jaap van Lagen and Rob Huff in qualifying at the German circuit.
The Frenchman endured set-up difficulties during the day, and the fact that he will start the reverse-grid race two from the front row offered him only a slight consolation after his second-worst qualifying session of the season.
“Qualifying was difficult,” admitted Vernay. “We’ve been struggling to find the right set up for the car in free practice and we also had some steering issue.
“I was quite confident before qualifying and Q1 was OK with P6, but we also started having a lot of spinning and very little traction.
“We don’t know yet what it was about but things became worse and worse, lap after lap, both in Q1 and Q2, and so I couldn’t do any better than P9.
“At least we are in the top ten and will be able to start race two from the front row, but I am obviously disappointed with our performance.
“We need to understand what happened and try to get ready for tomorrow’s races.”
Vernay remains 13 points adrift of Tassi after none of the top three drivers took any points away from qualifying.