Target Competition’s Josh Files has credited the team for his TCR Europe race victory at the Red Bull Ring after the outfit acquired a new Hyundai i30 N between rounds following his heavy Spa accident.
The incident marred Files’ weekend at Spa after the qualifying shunt had repercussions in both races, with significant damage causing the car to misbehave and meaning 14th was the best result he could manage.
The Target squad then acquired a new car and prepared it for the Red Bull Ring round, and Files has already tasted success on the first outing for the new chassis.
The double TCR Germany champion qualified second for the opening encounter at the Spielberg circuit and made the move stick on polesitter Luca Filippi into the opening corner and would not relinquish the lead thereafter.
“I just made a better start to be honest, we had a nice little fight up to turn two and with track knowledge I knew exactly where to position the car so he couldn’t get through,” Files told TouringCars.Net.
“I just got my head down from then. We set the car up to be quite strong at the start, because the you can get through and hopefully lead and hold position.
“I think the safety car very much helped us there because I had quite a bit of understeer even five laps after the safety car and I don’t think we would have had quite the pace we did had it been a full race duration.
“But overall I’m really happy, just full credit to the boys at Target for putting a car on track that is that competitive. Brand new car after the Spa accident and we managed to take a win out of it, so it’s really good and I think that’s my sixth win here at the Red Bull Ring.”
After Files made his move for the lead, the safety car was then deployed on lap two after a multi-car crash at the Remus hairpin.
Files admitted the elongated safety car interruption helped him to cool his Hyundai and believes it made the car a stronger package in the final laps.
“Because we had the chance to cool everything down in that safety car period, we had a strong car for the first few laps after the safety car,” he said.
“Then we started to get understeer quite quickly so I think for tomorrow’s race we need to make a few adjustments, because it’s not going to be so much of a case of having a strong car at the start.
“I think overall we did a good job, and it was nice also to see Dušan [Borkovic] come through as a team result.”
With erstwhile championship leader Julien Briché failing to finish, the result leapfrogged Files from fourth to first in the standings, now 12 points clear of Briché.
“It’s a really good result, obviously they had their bad luck today – I’ve had my bad luck in Spa and even race two at Hungary was not ideal with starting from the pit lane,” Files said.
“I’m hoping that’s that done and we can all move on and the same with them. It’s nice to have a clean fight and a fair fight, I never like to see my rivals go out because you don’t want win and take points out of them by them not having the result.
“So hopefully that’s everyone’s bad luck out the way and it can be a straight fight to the end now.”