Yvan Muller was ‘incredibly proud’ of the performance of his YMR team in the World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) races at the Ningbo International Speedpark last weekend, where the outfit took all three race wins.
Muller’s team were unbeaten in WTCR in the first Chinese event of the year, with Thed Björk topping both free practice sessions before securing pole position in Saturday’s qualifying session.
Björk then went on to claim a dominant win in the first race, including picking up the fastest lap of the race after leading every lap.
Then Björk took another pole for race two, with the only blot on the team’s dominant performance being that Esteban Guerrieri put his Honda at the top in Q2, although Björk rose to the top for the all-important Q3 session.
Benefitting from the reverse-grid, Muller than drove his Hyundai to victory in race two, before Björk won from pole in race three.
“Above all, we must highlight the outstanding performance of the team this weekend,” said Muller. “Three wins, two pole, the fastest lap of the meeting, this is the first time a team has done this since this format exists, and it will take time for someone to achieve such a feat. Congratulations to all members of the team.”
Muller himself had to endure a few more issues than Björk, with a power steering issue in first practice limiting his track time.
“For me, things were a bit more complicated. I had a technical problem that prevented me from driving in Free Practice, 1 which was detrimental at this track that I never raced at.
“I had to catch up for the rest of the weekend, which was not easy. I had another problem during qualifying on Saturday, but I was able to save some points in race one.
“The next day, Q1 went well, but I had another problem that prevented me from qualifying for Q3. I was able to start from the front row for race two and get that win, but then I had a problem with a tyre, and I had to give up.
“I lost points this weekend, but I’m especially proud as a team of our overall performance.”
Muller heads to the next Chinese event in Wuhan this weekend nine points from the top of the table – the same deficit with which he headed into the Ningbo event.