Mikel Azcona felt frustrated after the opening TCR Europe race at Assen, with the Spaniard losing the lead of the drivers’ championship after bringing his CUPRA home in ninth position.
Azcona faced a difficult job to hold on to his slender points lead heading into the race, and the PCR Sport driver dropped to tenth on the opening lap after getting involved in mid-pack scuffles with the Honda of Loris Cencetti at turn 5.
Although Azcona then got past the Peugeot of Julien Briché on lap five, he also lost out to title rival Dušan Borković and the only progress in the race came on lap 12 when he followed Stian Paulsen’s CUPRA past the ailing Josh Files.
After the race the 22-year-old told TouringCars.Net that he was frustrated to have not been able to take the fight to the other cars more during the race.
“The feeling is not very good, because today’s race was very difficult for us,” said Azcona. “We know that here at Assen we don’t have the pace to battle with the first position as the Hyundais and the Hondas are faster than us.
“We can put on a really good car and set-up for the race, but we cannot make anything out of that. I finished P9 and I am relatively happy with that, because two points is good for the championship, but we lost the lead and the feeling is not good.”
Azcona, who is now five points from the series lead, does not predict that he will be able to challenge for victory in race two, even though he will line-up in third position for the reverse-grid race after he had his fastest qualifying time reinstated.
“If the grid change hadn’t happened I would have started from P12, so I am happy. I will start from P3 which is really good for us. We are going to hopefully take some points. It will be very difficult, but we are going to defend as best as possible.
“Tomorrow’s race is going to be really difficult because our pace is not the fastest. The next meetings in Monza and Barcelona will depend on the BoP [Balance of Performance] and the compensation weight.
“For the next meetings I hope that the BoP will be better for us so we can try to challenge for the podium positions because this weekend we cannot do anything.
“I want to win the championship, but we need to work hard and prepare, because if it continues like this weekend it will be very bad for us.”