James Nash admitted that the loss of the lead to Rob Huff in the second TCR International Series race in China was ‘only a matter of time, with the SEAT driver at a loss to explain the time loss to the Volkswagen cars.
Nash emerged in the lead on the opening lap of the second race of the day, and at one stage the Craft-Bamboo Racing driver had a ten-second advantage over the next driver.
But after Leopard Racing’s Huff got into second on lap six, the gap came tumbling down, eventually leading to Huff putting a move on his fellow Brit for the win on lap 16.
“In the first few laps, I thought I had enough and that they wouldn’t ever catch that,” said Nash, who eventually finished in third, to TouringCrs.Net. “But as we were going through the laps I could see the gap starting to come down quite quickly.
“It was only a matter of time, there was nothing more I could do. It’s disappointing to see, but I think on TV you’ll see from the posture of my car compared to the VWs, it just wasn’t as good, and I don’t know why.
“Their car just looked much more balanced and had a lot more grip through some medium speed corners. I did everything I could and the main thing was just not to make any mistakes, and I didn’t do that.”
Nash struggled to explain why the Golf GTi was so much quicker around the Zhejiang International Circuit, with the Balance of Performance [BoP] meaning that the Volkswagen was only 10 kg lighter and 10 mm lower than the León.
“Their centre of gravity is slightly lower, so I don’t know whether that helps. On a one-off lap we could pull something out of the bag, but over a race distance, that was all I had.
“Pepe [Oriola] has been slightly better than me all weekend, but I don’t think even he could have done much more than that.
“The Golf is based on the same car, so I don’t see that there should have been that much of a gap. To be honest the SEAT just hasn’t had any track that’s favoured it. We’ll have to keep working on it, but I think we’re spent this year.”