Double points for Civic Type R TCR in Macau

“I started second and I finished sixth, so of course I’m not happy about that. I made an okay start, but was on the outside of the track for Mandarin, where I had to make a bigger lift off the power than normal because I wasn’t on the optimum line. That lost me more time and I was sixth by Lisboa. The car was great in the twisty section, but the straightline speed we have under the current BoP meant I wasn’t able to attack in the wide, fast sections. It’s still useful points.”

“The target when I came into WTCR three rounds ago was to score points, so it feels mega to have achieved that; and to say that my most competitive weekend in a front-wheel-drive car has some at the most difficult street circuit in the world, and a totally new circuit for me. I start Race Two from pole position tomorrow, so it was vitally important to get through today without any trouble. I’m pleased with the job everyone in the team has done to achieve this.”

“Today was a real shame because I think we were pretty certain to score some good points. I made an amazing start and got up from 14th to ninth, but then there was an incident at Lisboa. John Filippi came around the outside, so I scrubbed off a bit of speed to take a tighter line and I got a hit from behind by Thed Bjork. That pushed me into Filippi, put him in the wall and damaged my car. Even starting was an achievement; my driveshaft broke on the lap to the grid, but the team did an incredible job to change it in only five minutes. Those guys are awesome.”

“It was tough out there today. I had to basically stop the car at Lisboa on the first lap to get through the accident, and did the same on the next lap when two cars collided at San Francisco bend. When I saw I’d made up about 10 places from my grid position, I thought ‘yeah great’. Then I came through the corner at Moorish Hill and there was a car at 90 degrees, so I stopped suddenly and was hit from behind. After the red flag I couldn’t restart the car, so we lost some time, but I think if we can sort those problems, tomorrow should be okay for us.”

“It was a typical Macau race today and Andre did well to avoid two accidents on the first two laps. He got a bit of damage at the rear while trying to avoid Gordon Shedden’s spun car at half-distance, and then we had an issue getting the car fired-up at the restart, which lost about 50 seconds, so after that it was a case of making sure the car made the finish so we can sort out our few issues for tomorrow’s pair of races.”

“Macau is like two totally different circuits stuck together. You have the flat-out blast next to the sea and then the narrow, twisty hillside section. All the Civic Type R TCRs have performed well in the corners, but under the current BoP conditions, it’s been very difficult for the drivers to attack strongly into the one big braking zone at Lisboa; the end of the main straight. They all did a strong job today to avoid accidents and maximise the conditions, but I am sorry to see that Ma Qing Hua didn’t get the points he deserved through no fault of his or the team’s.”