Profi Car Team Halder’s Mike Halder said a setup change “made the car fantastic” after taking second place in qualifying ahead of the opening TCR Europe race in Barcelona.
Halder was just 0.024 seconds behind pole sitter Mat’o Homola in his Honda Civic Type R FK7 TCR and the German driver was delighted to make the front row after struggling in the first part of qualifying setting only the tenth fastest time.
“I’m very happy with P2,” said Halder. “Q1 was very hard for us; the first run I was right on the limit, absolutely maximum and then we changed something on the setup, and I said okay, maybe it will be much better, or I will lose everything for Q2.
“Now we can see that it was the right decision to make the change and the car was fantastic.
“It was the maximum we have but it’s a very small gap to pole position, so I’m very proud of my team that we have such a good car for this weekend.”
He concluded by discussing his plan for the pair of races this weekend: “Hopefully we will have a good start in Race 1, and we can maybe repeat the result we had here in 2018 but we have to focus on points for the championship, so we have to stay safe.”
Halder currently sits joint third in the TCR Europe standings, tied on points with former WTCC driver Mehdi Bennani.