Dušan Borković praised his GE-Force team after scoring his maiden win in the TCR International Series in Bahrain, where the Serbian driver took a comfortable win.
After getting past pole-sitter Ferenc Ficza in the opening sequence of turns, Borković opened up a comfortable margin over his rivals and was able to control the race.
It marks the Alfa Romeo driver’s first TCR win since joining the championship at the start of last season, giving him the chance to stand on the top step of the podium at the 26th time of asking.
“I am really, really, really happy with the performance,” said an elated Borković. “I must thank the engineers and mechanics at Romeo Ferraris and GE-Force for giving me such a good car.
“I had a lot of chances to win last year but made some stupid mistakes, particularly in the first races when I was usually in the top five. Today I took advantage of being on the front row and when I saw all the fights going on after the first few corners I knew I just had to control the race.
“The Honda cars always make a good start but I knew I had to be in front to avoid running in the slipstream of another car and so keeping the air temperature down – luckily I know how to attack!”
Borković added that he was concerned about tyre wear at the desert circuit, explaining that the smaller-engined Giulietta is harder on its tyres than the SEAT León he drove in 2016.
“The Alfa is much harder on the tyres than the SEAT I drove last year because of the higher torque so there are some good points for us and some not so good. I’m just delighted to win in a beautiful place like Bahrain at a Formula One event.”
Borković moves up to second overall in the drivers’ championship standings on 51 points as a result of his win, just one point behind new leader Jean-Karl Vernay.