Mikel Azcona admitted after taking pole position for the opening race of the weekend at Jarama that ‘everyone wants to win’ as he looks to make it three successive wins on his TCR Europe return.
Azcona dominated throughout qualifying for the final two races of the season to take pole by over six tenths of a second over Teddy Clairet and the Spaniard admitted afterwards that he was delighted with his performance.
“There’s a big gap to the second car, so I’m very happy – it’s amazing,” said Azcona.
“I’m not battling for the Championship, I know that, but I want to do a very good result in Spain for the team.
“I will be careful with the rest of the drivers who are battling for the Championship, but at the same time every time everyone wants to win so I will keep pushing.”
The 2018 TCR Europe champion with a pair of incredible drives through the field last time out at Spa to take a stunning double win and appears to again be the man to beat going into the final pair of races this season.
“It may look easy to be fast in each session, but it’s not easy at all,” added Azcona on his pole position time.
“Jarama is a difficult track – you don’t have space to make any mistakes. I know the track and I am very confident with the car.
“The team did a very good job to prepare the car with a good setup. Q1 was just a normal lap; of course, we were pushing, and we had to make sure we went through.
“In Q2, it was a perfect lap, I have to say. To repeat that lap would be very difficult because I was pushing 100% and there were no mistakes.”
WTCR regular Azcona hadn’t originally planned to be competing in the final rounds of the TCR Europe season this weekend but chose to compete after his performances in Belgium a fortnight ago.
Race one at Jarama takes place tomorrow morning at 11:20 CEST (10:20 BST).