Polesitter Jean-Karl Vernay praised his Audi RS 3 LMS after he qualified over half a second clear of his opposition for the opening TCR Europe race at Spa-Francorchamps.
The 2017 TCR International Series champion has topped each session so far this weekend, and is very happy with the performance of his car.
“Practice yesterday was good, this morning was good,” said Vernay. “We were able to save our tyres to only one lap.
“Lap time was okay, we wanted this pole position to score some points already and make sure we start on the front row for this afternoon. Now we just have to finish the job. But it was great, good lap and the car was fantastic.”
He told TouringCars.Net he is aiming to win in race one to make up for his points deficit after he missed the Zandvoort TCR Europe round to compete in the FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) that weekend.
“A win means points so I have to go for it. We are quite behind on the points missing Zandvoort but we’ll see. The race is very different from qualifying – you have the start, you have the first lap, you never know what can happen.
“We know that the Peugeot takes really really good starts, so we’ll see how that’s going on in the first lap.
“We also have a really good car, but as you saw in the two fastest sectors – sector one and sector three – we’re not the quickest, we just made a good overall laptime compared to the other guys.
“I’m sure the other guys have some good tools to make my race hard. I have to do my job.”
Rain is a possibility for the opening race later today, and Vernay says he will take the same approach regardless of the track decisions.
“Can you choose? You can’t choose about that. Really confident in both condition and either way you have to deal with that.
“We have to be ready and make sure that the car will be fine, but we know what we have to do.”
The opening TCR Europe race of the weekend will get underway at 17:20 CEST (16:20 BST).