Despite only claiming one 12th placed finish at the Hungaroring at the weekend, LADA driver James Thompson remained upbeat about his car’s pace, having ran yet more new parts at the weekend.
Thompson was taken out of race one by the ROAL Motorsport BMW of Darryl O’Young in an incident which also eliminated Wiechers-Sport’s Fredy Barth and Tuenti’s Pepe Oriola. Entirely blameless in the accident, Thompson admitted that such incidents were an unavoidable part of touring car racing from time to time.
“Race One was unlucky because of the crash straight after the start in the first corner, but this is part of the sport sometimes,” admitted Thompson. “That’s the thing with touring car racing: the drivers fight wheel to wheel and as a result it can sometimes end up as a contact sport. Once more we saw that this weekend: when a few cars came together in Race One and I was hit from behind and it was all over for me.”
Thompson had struggled throughout the weekend at a circuit where the TMS Sport team had hoped to find better pace with their LADA Granta. Thompson failed to make it into Q2 for the second time this year, qualifying down in 16th, despite showing top-ten pace in second practice.
Race two saw the Brit start from 22nd after the team took his car out of Parc Fermé for repairs. A battling drive through the field saw Thompson finish in 12th at the chequered flag – gaining more positions than anyone else in the race.
“On the whole I’m pleased with the speed of the car and the new parts we tested,” added Thompson. “Hopefully we’ll be able to show some even better results at the next round in Austria, and keep on testing new ideas that will help us get significantly faster.”
Team Principal Viktor Shapovalov expressed his frustration that the team have been involved in so many incidents since the start of the year – not only the infamous qualifying crash at Monza but also incidents in Morocco and Slovakia.
“It wasn’t a bad weekend but it could have been better,” admitted former WTCC racer Shapovalov. “The car is acceptable at this point but we have been a bit unlucky with crashes since the start of the season. There’s no point in complaining though as this is just part of touring car racing.
“We simply need to create a bit more luck for ourselves. Hopefully we will manage to exploit the clear potential of the car better in the next few races.”