Target Competition’s Dušan Borković says he is pleased to close the gap to championship leader Mikel Azcona to just one point after the opening TCR Europe race at the Hungaroring.
Borković capitalised from fierce battling ahead of him, and did not relinquish the lead after the midway point of the race, despite a late safety car.
He told TouringCars.Net he was happy to have closed the gap in the championship to one point, and is now hoping to stay out of trouble tomorrow and score solid points.
“[Mikel] Azcona is only one point ahead of me and this is the midway point of the season,” he said.
“Tomorrow I start in front of him and I hope I will not make any big mistakes I just want to finish the race and prepare for Assen and Monza which will not be perfect for us because of the big straights.
“I hope to continue these good results and tomorrow I want to be somewhere in the top five.”
Borković had been hoping for dry conditions in race one, after being discouraged with his Hyundai’s wet pace in qualifying.
“After qualifying I was a little bit depressed – I’ve never driven this car in the wet conditions – so I didn’t know what to expect but at least the team now has more knowledge for the future to see what we can improve.
“But I saw that it was drying up for the race, and then right before the race I saw the drops of rain and I thought not again! And then the first laps – and on the warm up lap – the car was so slippy it was like ice. I saw that the key is just to not make big mistakes because if you go over the kerb, if you touch the artificial grass it’s so wet with the slick tyres it was almost impossible to drive.”
After the start, Borković was running in fourth position, with the Honda duo of Josh Files and Attila Tassi battling with the CUPRA of Mikel Azcona.
“They made a gap with me,” said Borković. “I saw that they were pushing too much and I wasn’t pushing so much, and they started to make some mistakes so I just overtook them.
“From then I just controlled the rhythm, and made a gap. When I saw the safety car I was a little bit scared because of course that made the gap shorter. After the safety car I saw that Briché and Paulsen were fighting and I controlled it for the rest of the race.”