Mikel Azcona was critical of the changes to the TCR Balance of Performance ahead of Zandvoort, with the CUPRA driver calling the increase in power received by Lynk & Co ‘too much’.
Azcona was the ‘best of the rest’ in the opening FIA World Touring Car Cup qualifying session in the The Netherlands, but the PWR driver was still over seventh tenths away from pole-sitter Thed Björk.
The Lynk & Co 03 cars dominated the session, going fastest early on and never being headed as the top spot changed eight times between team-mates.
In the end Björk headed team-mates Yvan Muller, Andy Priaulx and Yann Ehrlacher, with the rest of the field a clear margin further back.
Azcona believes he did a ‘perfect lap’ on his run to secure the fifth fastest time, but the Spaniard was not optimistic of being able to challenge the Chinese cars in the race.
“They are much faster – [almost] one second faster than me,” said Azcona to TouringCars.Net. “My time for qualifying was a perfect lap, I couldn’t do better, so they have [almost] a one second margin so it is impossible to overtake them, but we are going to try for sure.
“It can be possible, but it is very difficult because they have a good car for this weekend and they can manage the pace much more than Slovakia.
“It’s a stupid thing to attack them because they are much faster. We saw in qualifying, but it depends in the race – if they are really slow then I am going to attack for sure.
“For sure it’s too much – it’s amazing and it’s incredible. It’s too much, because they are in another league. You can see they are one second faster than all the drivers. It’s completely too much.
“I’m ‘best of the rest’, because the Lynk & Co are very strong this weekend with the 2.5% of power [increase].”
Despite not being able to fight for pole, Azcona was still very happy to be fifth fastest, which will become fourth for race one after Ehrlacher was handed a post-qualifying penalty.
“I am super happy. You can see from P5 to P11 are within the same tenth. It means that it is very close between the drivers and to be P5 is for me fantastic.
“It’s a good starting position for the race. I feel confident with the car and I feel good, especially on this track in Zandvoort, in comparison with Slovakia. We have to push and use this opportunity.
“It helps a lot, because last year I won here in TCR Europe and I did a lot of kilometres, so for this year it helps a lot.
“During the year I was improving, so now with this new CUPRA I feel more comfortable than last year. The car is much better, so I have to use this opportunity to get some points, because the podium will be very difficult.”