LADA Sport’s James Thompson has compared the twisty, undulating Sonoma Raceway in California to Oulton Park in the UK, as the Brit contests his first race at the North American circuit.
The USA round of the World Touring Car Championship made its first appearance on the calendar in 2012 and this season is the former British Touring Car champion’s first time at the North Californian circuit.
After testing on Friday and practice on Saturday, Thompson was full of praise for the circuit approximately 50 km north of San Francisco.
“This track is really fun to drive: very difficult, bumpy and twisty,” said Thompson. “It’s actually bumpy like Mondello Park in Ireland, where I raced in BTCC, but at the same time fast as well, a bit like Oulton Park in England. So it’s a real mixture!
“Even though the top speeds are not very high, it’s difficult because of all the changes of direction. The track is also very slippery and dusty, and it’s a very different type of asphalt to the last couple of circuits we raced on – Russia and Argentina –where the tracks were new. It’s a real challenge and certainly gave us a proper headache today. It’s a challenge for both the car and the driver.”
Having been struggling for pace during testing and practice, qualifying proved to be a difficult session for Thompson as he could only manage the 18th fastest time, which later became 16th after Michel Nykjær and Hugo Valente had their qualifying times disallowed.
On pace it is the worst qualifying session of the year for Thompson, who has made it into Q2 at the past four consecutive events.
“Unfortunately, in qualifying we didn’t show the best of ourselves,” admitted Thompson. “The second run was a very good lap, but we were caught in traffic – some cars in front of me tried to do some slipstreaming, and I just got caught up in it. So I lost six-tenths of a second because of this. I would have been close to 12th. I was really disappointed.
“We’ve been in the top 12 for most of the year, and of course we expected some other similar results. I think we had a good chance today even though the car wasn’t as good as it could be.
“For tomorrow’s race we will make some improvements and we will probably be very close to the middle of the grid. It will be hard to attack but we have a long race ahead: 13 laps. So tomorrow is another day and I am always positive.”