Klim Gavrilov hailed an ‘amazing’ win in the TCR Europe season finale in Barcelona, where the Russian claimed his maiden win in the series in the reversed-grid race.
Gavrilov started the race from pole position and took a lights-to-flag win, having eased into a comfortable lead early on and then managed a gap of over a second to his nearest rival.
In the end he won the race by almost nine seconds after his closest rival, Jack Young, had to serve a drive-through penalty.
Having switched to Volcano Motorsport for this weekend in order to evaluate the CUPRA Leon Competición with a view to 2022, Gavrilov explained that winning was important to him to prove he still had the pace for victories, having won multiple races in his national TCR Russia series.
“For me it doesn’t matter which race to win but winning at least one race this year after all this mess that happened with me this season, is just amazing,” said Gavrilov to TouringCars.Net.
“It’s really important for me because I understand that, yeah, I am still really fast, and that I was unlucky in the whole season.”
Gavrilov, who had been just 11th in race one, added that even during the race he had still been learning more about the CUPRA – which he only wishes was a little more accommodating for his frame.
“Probably on the second lap I was getting used to the car more and more. I tried to make a lot of adjustments.
“I had to understand why I had no pace in the previous race. We found what we needed to change, we changed it and it worked perfectly.
“It’s great – I feel myself good in the team and the team is really happy, so it’s good.
“I will talk with the team about next year, because I am still a little bit tall for the CUPRA, but they said they will work on that and make more room for the longer guys like me.”