Felice Jelmini admitted it ‘was his fault’ after making a poor start in the opening TCR Europe race of the weekend at Spa-Francorchamps.
Jelmini had lined up on pole position for the first race of the weekend at the Belgian circuit on Friday evening but lost out to both eventual race winner Mikel Azcona and Sebastien Loeb Racing teammate Mehdi Bennani in the early stages of the race.
The Italian later revealed that his poor start was down to a possible limiter being set incorrectly and believed that it was his own fault for missing out on a potentially stronger result.
“I did a very bad start – maybe the limiter was set too low, but when I released the button the RPM was quite low,” said a disappointed Jelmini.
“Okay, it was my fault as well, so I know I have to improve.”
“For sure I’m not happy with the final result because I started from the pole so the main goal was to keep that position.”
As well as struggling to get off the line, the Hyundai Elantra driver also admitted that he suffered tyre problems during the race that further hindered his performance.
“In general it was a tough race – I tried to recover some time back from Mehdi and Mikel but it was really difficult,” explained Jelmini.
“I overheated the front tyres; I tried to cool them down but I suffered a lot from understeer.
“I’m happy for Mehdi and the team, we scored a lot of points for the Teams’ championship but I’m not happy for me.”
Jelmini now sits tenth in the championship standings, 12 points behind Brutal Fish Racing’s Jack Young.
Race two of the weekend is set to take place at 10:10 BST (11:10 CEST) tomorrow morning.