Attila Tassi believes that missing the opening practice session of TCR Europe at Spa-Francorchamps has contributed to him qualifying in 15th for race one.
The Hungarian racer was forced to miss FP1 yesterday [8th June] as his travel plans were delayed due to poor weather.
He made it to the circuit in time for FP2, but told TouringCars.Net that missing out on half an hour of track time hindered his performance in qualifying.
“I think it could be a result of that,” said Tassi. “I’m just seeing on the data that I’m losing half a second from my teammate in Eau Rouge which is obviously a corner which you have to build up step by step and I think that 30 minutes is really important especially in that corner.
“But I couldn’t do anything because it was the two cancelled flights in two days and I was happy to be here at least for FP2 but we are trying to do the maximum as we can.”
Tassi admitted to making an error on his hot lap in first qualifying which meant he did not participate in Q2, setting a time of 2:31.196.
“Unfortuntely I made a mistake on my fast lap in Q1, but I could be in Q2 I’m sure, I’m a bit unfortunate because of that, maybe on the race it will rain it gives us more chance. We want to make up as much places as possible.”
The Hell Energy Racing Team with KCMG currently sits fourth in the standings, 22 points adrift of joint leaders Dušan Borković and Mikel Azcona, and is focusing on making progress to salvage points after an unfortunate start to the weekend.
“All the weekend the aim is to score as much points as we can, and today is the same. Tomorrow is the same. Despite the fact that we are P15, we can have a good race.”