Attila Tassi was pleased to score his first win of the season in the second TCR Europe race at Assen, lifting the KCMG Honda driver into championship contention with just four races left to run.
Tassi took victory from fifth on the grid in the reversed-grid second race in The Netherlands, holding off the CUPRA of Mikel Azcona to take his first win since a perfect weekend in the TCR International Series in 2017.
The Hungarian says that he had the pace to be able to manage the gap to Azcona at the front, allowing him to win by just over a second.
The victory came after Tassi had finished fifth in Saturday’s first race, elevating him to fourth overall in the drivers’ championship standings.
“It was a nice race for me and I had a good start, which I planned,” said Tassi to TouringCars.Net. “I was third after the first corner, and then at the end of the first lap I was in the lead, which was also my plan, so I could make a nice gap from Azcona.
“Unfortunately, we then had the safety car, which I wasn’t happy about. After that I had a good restart and I could pull out the same gap as before, so I could just manage that gap until the end. It was a really nice race.
“Compared to yesterday it seems like a totally different car. I haven’t had many problems; it still has some, but it handled really well.”
Tassi admits that he would like to have had stronger pace in qualifying, when he put his Civic sixth behind team-mate Josh Files, who was fastest, but reflected that he would not have had as good a chance in the second race if he had been higher up the order.
“It was a good weekend from the beginning, except in qualifying. In Q1 I made a nice lap, but in Q2 I could have done a better lap, almost the same as Josh, but I made a mistake.
“Yesterday then wasn’t a good race because of that. But if I had been at the front then I wouldn’t have been at the front in the second race, so it’s a positive weekend for sure.”
Tassi is now just 39 points from championship leader Dušan Borković, and admits that he will need some luck if he is to get closer to the top of the table at Monza next time out.
“I didn’t know that I’m that close in the championship. We will have to see if we are lucky enough to have some things go our way.
“I’m hoping to fight for the championship, but we need a lot of luck for that. The first goal is to take the teams’ championship at least and if we are in that position then maybe we will also fight for the drivers’ championship.”