The LADA Sport LUKOIL team of James Thompson and Mikhail Kozlovskiy learned a lot from the third round of the FIA World Touring Car Championship held in Slovakia this weekend. After making some changes in the car set-up after qualifying, both LADA Granta cars showed signs of improvement, with James classified fourth in the pre-race warm-up. When it came to the race itself though, the progress wasnt quite as good. The drivers started in accordance with their qualifying times: James from 14th and Mikhail from 20th (see footnote). This obviously affected their chances of finishing in the top 10, with James coming home 13th in Race One and Mikhail finishing 20th.
In Race Two, James was 14th while Mikhail was 20th once more. LADA added 59 more points to its score in the manufacturers championship, bringing the total score up to 129 points after three rounds.
The Slovakian races provided the team with plenty of new experience with which to further improve the car, and as a result some fresh technical solutions for the LADA Granta will be introduced for the future.
James Thompson commented: It was a bit of a tough weekend for us. In two sectors out of three our time was very close to that of the leaders but we were losing time in the longest sector that contained a technical combination of corners. Thankfully we were able to find some solutions and these helped, as we could see in the warm-up where I was fourth. If we had performed better in qualifying, Im sure we would have been a lot faster in the race. The simple fact is that when you start from the middle, its very hard to overtake. But basically the car was fast today. In the first sector we had a very good pace and I could really take the fight to our rivals. Hopefully well be back in the top 10 at the next round in Hungary.
Mikhail Kozlovskiy added: This really isnt an easy track. In Race One I managed to climb up the order but then I braked a bit too late and went off. This meant that I had to return to the pits to change tyres, which cost me time and position. I had a good first lap in Race Two and managed to get past a few people. Unfortunately I made one mistake under braking and got onto the dirty part of the track: a few of my rivals used this against me to their advantage. In summary, I learned a lot but I also made life quite difficult for myself. Im going to try and improve over the next few races.
Team principal Victor Shapovalov concluded: With each round were gaining in experience and learning more about the car: specifically how it performs on different tracks and with different set-ups. The Slovakia Ring gave us a lot of valuable information about our car and its relative strengths and weaknesses. Its also important to remember that this was a completely new circuit for both our drivers as well as our car. I believe that for the next round at the Hungaroring, we should be more competitive.
NB In Q1 James qualified 15th and Mikhail was 21st. But after Rob Huff and Fernando Monje received grid penalties to lose 10 and five places respectively, the LADA Sport LUKOIL drivers moved up the grid order.
