Josh Files blamed a steering issue for going backwards in the opening TCR Europe race at Assen, with the Brit saying that he felt ‘privileged to finish’ after driving through the problem to take a single point for tenth.
Files ran in third for the opening five laps of the race, but thereafter slipped down the order as he fought a mystery issue with his Honda Civic.
The Brit’s slide down the order started with a tap from Target Competition’s Kris Richard, for which no punishment was handed out, with Files feeling that the push out of the podium position was too much contact.
“If you look at the rear bumper, you’ll see that I made the corner and someone else didn’t,” said Files to TouringCars.Net. “Kris just hit me, so I’m not best pleased about that because it was just a push to pass, full-on ram.
“I was already suspecting a steering problem, so I wasn’t going to defend for my life because I could tell I was two or three seconds off the pace already.
“But to just ram someone isn’t really the way to drive. I know its touring cars and it does get a bit bumpy, but there’s bumping and ramming and that’s just ramming.”
Files lamented the problem which prevented him from challenge for a higher placing, believing that he could have taken a podium if his car had been working normally.
“My start was okay, and I felt that myself, [Dániel] Nagy and [Jean-Karl] Vernay were just going to drive away. We started fighting and then for some reason on lap two coming out of the hairpin, the steering went all over the place and something has moved, but we don’t know if it’s the steering or not.
“We’re very fast and the car, when it was going straight, was perfect. I genuinely believe we would have had a podium, we would have fought with Nagy and Vernay, and then just whatever has happened, it’s gone and ended my race.
“What can you do? It’s been that kind of season for me. You do everything right, get pole position, you have all the speed in the world and then something small goes small.
“To be honest, I feel quite privileged just to finish because I don’t think the car was worthy of finishing. So that’s the positive and then tomorrow we’ll just have to give a good go of it.
“We already decided in Hungary that the championship is over and that we were just going to focus on trying to win the Teams’ one, but that’s not going easily either.
“I didn’t really put up a fight with anyone today because there was no point. It’s just one of those things, but at least there’s another race tomorrow.”